The Spider Complete Series DVD Review
Review: At one point in The Spider, Ole Christian Madsen's brilliant Danish noir thriller, femme-fatale Lisbeth Gordan (the radiant Stine Stengade) tells her beau, the over-zealous reporter Bjarne Madsen (Submarino's Jakob Cedergren) that "you're sick. Journalism is a disease and you've got it". This delightfully vitriolic outburst is customary both of the miniseries' excellent hardboiled dialogue and its generally pessimistic worldview. There are no heroes in this story, merely residents of various subscripts of grey. Due for a UK DVD release on 15th June (from the lovely people at Arrow Films. Seriously, these guys are the best!), now is a perfect time to discover easily one of the best TV shows of the 00s. Cedergren commands the screen as a journalist increasingly overwhelmed by his duties, desperate to lead a normal life with Lisbeth and support his self-destructive brother Ole (Lars Mikkelsen, recently seen playing Magnussen in BBC's Sherlock). His latest endeavour, to uncover a gangster's corruption of the police department could well destroy everything he hopes to build. The cast are universally magnificent, Cedergren being the clear standout with a staggeringly honest portrayal of an imperfect man navigating a morally ambiguous underworld. The mystery itself, although disorientatingly complex at times, coolly pulls you into a web of intrigue (ha!), before bunking off major players with gleeful abandon, all under Madsen's (the showrunner) careful control as he slowly tears down the life of his on-screen counterparts. Boasting a wickedly dark sense of humour, a hypnotic score from Soren Hyldgaard and some of the Dutch-est Dutch angle ever to grace the small screen, this is unmissable television for crime fans and hat enthusiasts alike...
Extras: None.
Five-Word Verdict: "I really need that hat"
Score: 4½/5
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