A Second Chance
Detectives and best friends Andreas and Simon lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But all that changes when the two of them are called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple, caught in a vicious cycle of violence and drugs. It all looks very routine – until Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet. The usually collected policeman finds himself confronted with his own powerlessness and is shaken to his core. As Andreas slowly loses his grip on justice, it suddenly becomes up to the unruly Simon to restore the balance between right and wrong.
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TMDB Reviews
Reno
TMDB10 years ago
When the GOOD is as bad as the BAD it become.
I was not sure about watching this film, but like usual ignoring the critics made me realise how much it was underrated. From the director of the Oscar winning film 'In a Better World'. After that great feat which ignited her international career, quite did not go well accordingly, including one project in the Hollywood. So she went back and made this Danish thriller-drama. Very strongly written screenplay, but feels it has flaws and then on its progress, they had all patched so brilliantly to make you think yourself you had got so wrong. It was not based on any book, but looks it could make one fine.
This is a story of 'the good' and 'the bad', and when 'the good' turns very bad, what would 'the bad' decide to do. A decent middle class couple who can do anything for their newborn child and another couple who are drug addicts whose newborn was completely neglected. When the tragedy strike in one of these families, the nightmare begins for another. A series of events follows where they all go for an extra mile to get a second chance. So see it to believe what people are capable when they are in the desperate situation.
Like the title and its tagline indicating, the narration carefully and intensely built the plot in the first act. That is the part you have to be watchful to learn the characters which is obviously a bit slower than the rest of the film. In the second half where it all turns to one direction to move on with a couple of quick twists. Totally unpredictable stuffs, because they were silly or maybe kind of familiar and you won't expect that to happen, but it does. I think that was the very clever, beside the powerful performance had brought a good balance between the pace and the contents of the film.
"People look different when they are dead. That's just how it is."
It did not win any big awards internationally or contended for the Oscars, but still the film is worth a watch. No matter what...
