Featuring shades of murder mystery and conspiracy film, Danish crime thriller The Keeper of Lost Causes follows a detective struggling to find his place in the world after being reassigned. Given strict orders to merely read through cold case files, Detective Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his new assistant, Assad (Fares Fares), quickly become obsessed with solving the disappearance of politician Merete Lynggaard (Sonja Richter). The search for answers leads the duo down the path of the average mystery/procedural, where they run into a typical cast of characters.

In spite of its traditional, somewhat generic plot, The Keeper of Lost Causes keeps things entertaining thanks to a few subversions that help maintain an element of surprise. A brain-damaged witness provides a unique aspect, and the manner in which Carl and Assad go about interrogating the young man is oddly suspenseful. Unfortunately, The Keeper of Lost Causes lacks the element that makes the greatest detective stories so engaging—we never really come to know Carl and Assad. Only the basic nature of their characters is revealed (Carl is more of a hothead while Assad is a bit more meticulous), instead of providing development or a backstory. Performances from the two leads are good enough—certainly passable—but since the film simply doesn’t give the actors the opportunity to showcase their skills, the characters are forced to take a back seat to their investigation itself. With a running time of just over ninety minutes, there’s no reason why more character development couldn’t have been included, and it likely would’ve made the film feel more complete. But The Keeper of Lost Causes is entertaining enough to get a recommendation for fans of this brand of cinema.

Leave it to the Danes to take what looks like a big ole quirk-fest and turn it into something much more disturbing. At the start, Anders Thomas Jensen’s film has all the makings for a light, quirky comedy about brotherhood. Brothers Gabriel (David Dencik) and Elias (Mads Mikkelsen) have a strained relationship but have to reunite once their father dies. Upon his death, the two watch a video left to them where their father reveals they were adopted and only half-brothers, sharing the same father but not the same mother (both mothers died during childbirth). With only the name of their biological father to go by, Gabriel eventually finds out that he lives on a tiny island with a population of just over 40 people. Gabriel and Elias head off and discover a series of dark, twisted and morbidly funny revelations about their family’s past.

The film’s introduction to its two main characters, with Gabriel missing his father’s death due to a gag reflex and Elias taking a break during a date to jerk off in a public washroom, implies that Men & Chicken will play out as a bland and juvenile comedy of eccentricities. Thankfully Jensen doesn’t go down a predictable route, instead changing the film’s location to the secluded island and making things get a lot weirder with the introduction of three other half-brothers (Nicolas Bro, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Soren Malling) that have basically been raised as animals. Quirks and peculiarities soon give way to slapstick hijinks once the five siblings begin operating on the same abnormal wavelength, and Jensen introduces more sadistic pieces of information until, by the end, Men & Chicken is like a Cronenberg film crossed with your average Sundance family drama. Jensen and his game cast (especially Mikkelsen, who’s hard to recognize at points) make it work too, and turn Men & Chicken into a film that’s just as strange as it is entertaining.