I watched the "Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes" movie in 2014 and didn't like it. This was an adaptation of the first of the Department Q detective novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Both the novels and the ongoing film series are Danish. At the time, "Department Q" was part of the first wave of popular Scandinavian crime dramas that came with Stieg Larsson's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." I found that first "Department Q" movie, directed by Mikkel Norgaard, to be crudely put together, and the depiction of the villain in particular was rather brutish and exploitative. I haven't seen any of the other films from the series.
The English language remake has been a long time coming, and I was initially not happy that the new Netflix "Dept. Q" series was going to start with the same case from that first movie again. However, the talent involved was too good to pass up. Scott Frank, who was behind "The Queen's Gambit" and has screenwriting credits on many good films, wrote and directed the majority of the show. The action now takes place in Scotland instead of Denmark, and the prickly detective that nobody likes, DCI Carl Morck, is played by a grouchy Matthew Goode. After being shot on the job, he's tasked with running a new Edinburgh cold case unit with a Syrian ex-cop, Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov), and a genial cadet, Rose Dickson (Leah Byrne). In counterpoint, we also follow an ambitious prosecutor, Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie), with a long list of enemies and a lot of secrets in her past. The supporting cast includes Kelly MacDonald, Kate Dickie, Steven Miller, Jamie Sives, Tom Bulpett, and Shirley Henderson.
"Dept. Q" is significantly better than the "Department Q" movie on every front. Expanding the story to fill nine hours allows for a much fuller and richer exploration of all the characters, most notably Morck and Lingard. My issues with the villain have mostly been addressed by making the primary victim character a stronger and more active presence as a counterbalance. I also like the choice of making both of the primary protagonists difficult and rather unlikeable people who are both forced to address some of their shortcomings. Matthew Goode's Morck is a familiar type - not a team player, a condescending asshole to everybody, especially hostile to authority, and failing at keeping the darker side of the job from spilling over into their personal life. I was more impressed with the portrayal of Lingard, the kind of unapologetically cutthroat woman that everyone loves to hate. It's ambiguous for a very long time as to how much we should be sympathizing with her.
However, Alexej Manvelov steals the show as Akram Salim. He's the super-competent, very polite foreign detective type who turns up regularly in older crime stories. Here he's playing sidekick to Morck, but always with the sense that he's in this role temporarily, and he's absolutely the hero of his own story from a different point of view that the audience isn't privy to - not yet, anyway. There's this wonderful sense of mystery about him, because we explore everything about Morck from his mandated therapy sessions to his complicated living situation, but all we know about Salim is what he tells Morck directly. Every new revelation about him is a surprise, and it's delightful. The rest of the ensemble is also very strong, and "Dept. Q" successfully comes across as a totally different animal than its source material. Instead of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," the obvious point of comparison is now "Slow Horses," which also features a gang of law enforcement misfits and problem children.
I'd love for "Dept. Q" to get more seasons after this, though if Netflix wants all the key creative talent to stay involved it'll probably be a long wait for more. Shorter, "Sherlock" style seasons would probably be workable, and there's certainly no shortage of "Dept. Q" books to adapt. However, this level of quality isn't easy to achieve, and lovers of bleak detective fiction shouldn't pass it up. It's rare that a remake comes out this well, and rarer still that a remake improves so much on the original.
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