Directing: A-
Acting: B+
Writing: A
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A

Some people keep going back to the casino, because they win some kind of jackpot just often enough. In the aggregate, it could be argued, they spend far more money than they ever earn back. But, from the perspective of some gamblers (the ones who aren’t addicts, anyway; I don’t want to stretch this metaphor too far), there was value in the time spent even when they weren’t winning big. The process itself is fun, and therefore has value.

And so it goes with movies. A cinephile like myself can watch countless movies that are far from special, but still have a good time watching them, on a consistent basis. In spite of wildly varying levels of quality, the experience itself almost always has value. Still, it’s the movies that are special that are the reason I love movies to begin with.

Riders of Justice, the new Danish film available on demand for about seven bucks, is special. A movie doesn’t have to be a masterpiece to be special, mind you—and, in many cases, the ones considered “masterpieces” are stiff and uninviting. But a movie that practically reinvents a genre? It’s that kind of experience that creates a passionate interest in the form.

And Riders of Justice is an “action comedy,” I suppose. The difference is, in stark contrast to your average action-comedy from, say, Hollywood, the action here has emotional heft, and the comedy has a kind of dark wisdom.

I’m eager to share as little as possible about this movie. It’s almost certainly best experienced going in blind—hell, maybe even not knowing about the action or the comedy, but I guess we’ve crossed that bridge already. I learned about the inciting incident to the story in a brief synopsis on IMDb.com, and I really wish I hadn’t even known that. Because as the film begins, and you are introduced to the characters, you really have no sense of where the story is going, until about half an hour in.

There’s a teenage girl, Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), taking the train to school because her mom’s car broke down. There’s Mathilde’s father, Markus (Mads Mikkelsen), calling to share the disappointing news that his army post is to last another three months. There are two math geeks, Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Lennart (Lars Brygmann), obsessed with data and predictive probability algorithms. There’s the very large Lemmenthaler (Nicolas Bro), a hacker with a temper. There’s even a young, sex trafficked gay Ukrainian man, Boashka (Gustav Lindh), who winds up part of this group by happenstance.

How all of these people wind up crossing each other’s paths is the delight of this film, which is why I don’t want to spoil it here. And none of these people are even the “Riders of Justice” of the title, the name of a dangerous gang of criminals—but, also, a not-so-thinly veiled reference to this ensemble cast of characters working together to seek vengeance that may or may not be justified or even have a point to it.

Riders of Justice is maybe more of a quirky drama than it is either an action movie or a comedy. The “action” is more like well choreographed, comparatively understated violence, still exciting in its way when appropriate—but always with a certain thematic weight to it. The comedy comes and goes, weaving in and out of the narrative as the characters get exasperated with each other. When the time is right for it, though, the humor can come right out of left field, in a way that makes you laugh harder than you thought possible while watching a movie like this.

To call this a great ensemble cast would be an understatement. Mikkelsen here has a closely cropped haircut and a bushy beard, rendering him nearly unrecognizable, particularly in comparison to the other popular Danish film he was in last year, Another Round (I think this movie is better). His performance is very muted due to his character being so stoic and repressed, but it’s in keeping with the grief that is the undercurrent to everything happening in this story.

In any event, you’ll be hard pressed to find another film that is less predictable and simultaneously more fun, with real, human issues at play. Riders of Justice isn’t just a lark; it’s about real things, with characters who feel weird even in their uniquely oddball sensibilities. If this were made by an American, in all probability it would have been self-consciously “quirky.” There is no such sensibility here. It’s a deeply dark and comic, fundamentally human tale that is ultimately as moving as it is completely entertaining.

*At no point is this what you expect, and it’s all the better for it.*

Overall: A-