Department Q: The Absent One

This Danish policier brings another outing for Department Q, the under-staffed, over-worked Copenhagen detectives tackling a massive pile of cold cases, first introduced in previous feature The Keeper of Lost Causes. This time the suicide of a retired country cop obsessed with solving the murder of his teenage children sends world-weary Nikolaj Lie Kaas and trusty sidekick Fares Fares to re-open closed files from years earlier while at the same time tracking down suspects in the here and now. Freed from the task of setting up the main characters that made the earlier film a bit of a plod, this sequel is no world-beater, but moves along smartly enough, and manages the Nordic Noir trick of appearing very classy at all times while unspooling an incredibly lurid plot featuring lashings of schoolgirl sex and sadistic violence. It's a solid offering for genre fans nonetheless, with Lie Kaas (a small-screen regular in both The Killing and Follow the Money) absolutely at home as the grim-faced lead and Pilou Asbaek popping up as a sleek business tycoon in quite a contrast from his heroic cinema roles in A Hijacking and A War.