THE MARCO EFFECT/ MARCO EFFECTEN

Denmark, 2021, 125 minutes, Colour.

Ulrich Thomsen, Zaki Yousef, Sophie Torp, Lubos Olah.

Directed by Martin Zandvliet.

This film has the same characters as Keeper of Lost Causes, 2013, but a different cast.

This is a police investigation led by veteran Danish actor and international actor, Ulrich Thomsen. He plays a dedicated Commissioner, world-weary, a loner, confronted by a suicide at the opening of the film. He is meant to get therapy but wants to work.

His associate is Assad, played by Zaki Yousef. There are other members of the squad, the commander, and the women who are part of the investigated case.

There is a focus on a young boy, on a train, taken by the police at the Danish border for interrogation. He is stubbornly silent. However, the detectives continue their investigation of a case about a bureaucrat investigating financial fraud, accused of paedophilia, who has disappeared four years earlier.

The plot is rather complicated but enough clues and information given to the audience by two thirds the way through the film so that they can work out what has happened for themselves, following the police investigation, but anticipating some of the conclusions – including interrogation of the boy and finding his identity, interrogation of the family of the accused man, the location of his body, the fraud investigation connection with business and charity work in Africa.

An entertaining variation on the theme of police investigation.

1. A police investigation drama? The previous film, characters, no different cast?
2. The Danish settings, the city, apartments, precincts, hospitals, interrogations? On trains? The musical score?
3. The title, the reference to the Romani boy, his being on the train, the Danish border, hiding in the toilet, apprehended, interrogated, refusing to speak? The pressure on him? His escape, finding his father, the bond between them? The gradually emerging of his identity, the daughter of the murdered bureaucrat, including him in the drawings, emerging that he had witnessed the murder of the bureaucrat? Pursued, apprehended? Ultimately speaking, ultimately collaborating? Reunited with his father?
4. The focus on Carl, the opening, confronting the man, the man suicide? The psychological effect on Carl, living alone, reclusive, dedicated to his work, therapy, asking himself questions? Asking to go back to work after two weeks instead of six? His boss, urging him to therapy? Back to the office, the collaboration with Assad?
5. The visit to the hospital, the officer paralysed, working on the case, information? And the finale of the film with Carl going to visit him again, this time with a cigarette?
6. Assad and co-working together, interrogating the boy, the different methods, the boy’s silence? Mona and the female presence? The different visits, Carl losing his temper, apologising to Mona?
7. The murder of the bureaucrat, accusations of being a paedophile, swimming coach, raping the swimmer, investigating fraud in the charity business, his disappearance? The interrogation of the girl allegedly raped, at the swimming pool, her denials, contacting her later, her father paid large sums of money, her killing herself?
8. The visit to the family of the murdered man, his wife and protesting his innocence, his young daughter, the drawings on the wall, colour photographing them, studying them, the fourth person in the photo, the boy?
9. The visit to the executive, his giving a speech, the interrogation, his sweating?
10. The audience working out what had gone on, the money raised from the hospital in Africa, the business connections, the PR, the thugs, the investigation into fraud, the murder of the bureaucrat (and Marco indicating where he died, and the recovery of the body)? The various men and their connections, the cover up, creating the narrative of the rape, the murder, the impression of the disappearance?
11. Carl, pursuing the boy, the warehouse, the physical attack, kidnapping Marco? The pursuit? Confrontations and shootouts?
12. The businessman in bed, the PR man smothering him? The leader arriving, shooting the PR man, the house set alight?
13. Carl, the camera at the back of the car, identifying the leader, the arrest? The conclusion of the case?