Riders of Justice (2020)
Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen
Markus returns home to care for his daughter when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. However, when a survivor of the wreck surfaces and claims foul play, Markus suspects his wife was murdered and embarks on a mission to find those responsible.
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What critics compared Riders of Justice to
In a sense, the rather lean theme of happenstance’s cruel randomness ties together two movies: a comedy of errors involving overeducated fools deluded enough to think they can hack the fabric of reality, and a rampaging Taken variant led by the stone-faced, brutal Markus.
The understated, deadpan delivery makes it possible for the film to be both a homage to the vendetta-Daddy genre exemplified by Taken and its ilk, and a complete subversion of its core philosophy: that a man can somehow rewrite the injustices of the world, especially those visited on his womenfolk, if he only has will enough.
“Riders of Justice” riffs on the “old man action hero” niche, recently dominated by Liam Neeson in a handful of synonymous titles including “The Commuter,” “Cold Pursuit,” and “Non-Stop,” movies spun out from the success of the “Taken” franchise.
Imagine the nerds from “The Big Bang Theory” stumbling into the plot of “Taken,” or pretty much any Liam Neeson out-for-revenge thriller.
Mads Mikkelsen stars as the scruffy hero in this gloriously violent Taken knockoff, doing his own spin on Liam Neeson, as a husband and father with a particular set of violent skills.
Mads Mikkelsen reunites with "Men & Chicken" director Anders Thomas Jensen for a bitterly comic "Taken" riff with a major cosmic twist.
Based on a concept by Anders and Nikolaj Arcel ( The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , 2009), Riders delicately balances the terror of loss, the sheer void a sudden, unexpected death creates, with humor born out of natural interaction.