Keswick Film Club - Reviews - Riders Of Justice

I think this film surprised us all; we knew it was a 'revenge thriller' with an impish, dark humour mixed in, but we didn't expect it to be quite so funny! Yes there were some violent scenes, but the humour allowed (most of us) to laugh through much of it (so much so that the only complaint in the pub was the bad language!).

A series of circumstances placed Matilde and her mother on a train, which crashed and the mother was killed. A fellow passenger, Otto, was convinced the crash was not an accident and, together with his two nerdy friends Lennart and Emmethaler, they decide a suspicious passenger was involved with a gang: the Riders of Justice. When they tell Matilde's father Markus (a serving soldier) he decides to go on a killing spree to get his revenge...

So that is the basic plot, but tells you nothing about the humour. The three nerds were all in need of deep counselling even before the accident, and, once with Markus (Mads Mikkelsen), the four make up a Weird Bunch indeed, sometimes acting as a revenge squad but at others trying to help Matilde come to terms with her mother's death and, at all times, driving each other mad. By the end, when it turns out they not only have the wrong Gang in their sights but that the train crash was an accident after all, we are left with the biggest surprise of them all: a happy ending!

There is much more to this film than I have described and it left the audience that I spoke to in high spirits. A good thriller, a good comedy and maybe even a bit thought-provoking... certainly great entertainment!