Johan Falk Trilogy ***½ This trio of mostly subtitled, thoughtful crime dramas comes from Sweden. Johan Falk (Jakob Eklund) is a tough, smart police detective who finds himself facing progressively bigger challenges from higher levels of illegal activity as the 1999 - 2001 episodes appeared. In Zero Tolerance, the laconic Falk has the misfortune of seeing a street crime while off duty, for which he becomes the fall guy. Falk has to scramble to clear himself by unravel the maze of higher-level machinations that put him on the spot.
In Executive Protection and The Third Wave, Falk faces increasingly larger scale corporate corruption, with a web of intrigue that has spread through all of Europe and beyond. Each of the nearly two-hour films works as a stand-alone thriller, but recurring characters and plot threads make the trilogy more satisfying when viewed as a whole. Falk’s character returned for further adventures from 2009 - 12. This intro should spur fans of serious crime fare - that which balances intellectual stimulation with the visceral in realistic proportion - curious about Falk’s more recent clashes with 21st Century crimes and the masterminds behind them.