Riders Of Justice

By this point in MADSNESS we've had gangster Mads, cannibal Mads, villainous Mads, ripped Mads, prestige Mads, mentally ill Mads, compassionate Mads, saintly Mads, revolutionary Mads and cowboy Mads. RIDERS OF JUSTICE gives us grieving Mads.

When Markus, a career soldier, loses his wife in what appears to be a random train accident, he returns home to care for the teenage daughter he barely knows. Before long, a statistician arrives at his door with an extraordinary theory: the crash wasn't an accident at all. Convinced they've uncovered a conspiracy involving a violent biker gang, the unlikely group set out to bring those responsible to justice.

That's all you need to know.

Like the very best Anders Thomas Jensen films, RIDERS OF JUSTICE refuses to stay in one genre for long. It's a revenge thriller, a pitch-black comedy, a family drama, a meditation on grief and, somehow, one of the funniest films you'll ever see about trauma. Beneath the gunfights and deadpan humour lies a surprisingly moving exploration of coincidence, masculinity and our desperate need to believe that everything happens for a reason.

Reuniting Mads Mikkelsen with Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Lars Brygmann and Nicolas Bro, the film brings together one of the finest ensembles in modern Danish cinema. Mads gives one of the richest performances of his career, balancing explosive violence with extraordinary vulnerability.

Many critics called ANOTHER ROUND Mads Mikkelsen's finest performance. A year later, he quietly made an equally strong case for RIDERS OF JUSTICE. Funny, heartbreaking and endlessly unpredictable, it's one of the very best Danish films of the twenty-first century.