Beck – Spår i mörker

Beck – Spår i mörker (Beck - Trails in Darkness) is a 1997 film about the Swedish police detective Martin Beck directed by Morten Arnfred. It is the eighth film about Martin Beck with Peter Haber as Martin Beck and Mikael Persbrandt as Gunvald Larsson.

Plot

Martin Beck is on his way to a vacation with his colleague and girlfriend Lena Klingström when several gruesome murders in the Stockholm Metro force him to return. Without any kind of motivation, he is forced to lead the investigation of the strange murders. There are four things connecting the murders: they are all in the subway, they are all decapitations, and a sign is left by the murderer/murderers. This sign is "X-(", which means "death" in 1337. The last connecting thing is that before every murder, all lights has been turned off (note that this was faked and in reality impossible). As the investigation progresses it becomes clear that Erik Lindgren, a man who works in the subway has some kind of connection to the murderers and that they are living in the system of tunnels beneath Stockholm which is much more vast than the subway system. When Erik is found, he reveals that the murderers are kids that live mostly in the tunnels, playing a game called "Final Doom", and that his sister is one of those kids. They have built their own view of the reality through the game and are playing it by killing people in the subway, and gaining "frags". They share these murders with other kids online and reaches new "levels" by gaining frags. When Erik is guiding Beck to the entrance of their hideout, they are ambushed by the kids, but the Swedish task force arrives just in time to save Beck, but too late for Erik. Eventually, Beck finds Erik's sister, Annika, who takes Beck and the task force to the hideout. The hideout is empty but for a single little boy, who are playing games. He tells Annika that the other kids are out on a raid. By reading text files on one of the computers, Annika discovers that they are raiding the station underneath Odenplan (in practice this was filmed at S:t Eriksplan, which is one station west of Odenplan). Beck and the task force arrives just in time to arrest the kids, who are armed with machetes and night vision goggles. Stefan, the leader, attempts to kill Annika upon finding out that she betrayed them, but is shot. When Beck arrives to the street, journalists asks him if there is a connection to some similar murders in New York and he tells Klingström that he may not be able to go on the planned vacation, because he maybe have to go to New York and assist with the investigation.

Cast

• Peter Haber as Martin Beck
• Mikael Persbrandt as Gunvald Larsson
• Stina Rautelin as Lena Klingström
• Cecilia Häll as Annika Lindgren
• Carlo Schmidt as Erik Lindgren
• Per Morberg as Joakim Wersén
• Kasper Lindström as Jens (a kid)
• Ingvar Hirdwall as Martin Beck's neighbour
• Rebecka Hemse as Inger (Martin Beck's daughter)
• Fredrik Ultvedt as Jens Loftsgård
• Michael Nyqvist as John Banck
• Lasse Lindroth as Peter (Inger's boyfriend)
• Staffan Göthe as Henrik Magnusson
• Margareta Niss as Elisabeth Ernström
• Ulf Eklund as Bengt Nihlfors
• Boman Oscarsson as a journalist
• Daniel Larsson as Stefan

Production

All the footage from "Final Doom" is taken from modified parts of Marathon 2: Durandal by Bungie Software.

Release and reception

The premier in Sweden was on 31 October 1997. It was released on VHS in February 1998 and on DVD 13 November 2002.^[1] The film had 1,595,000 viewers in Sweden when it was sent on TV4 in 2002.^[2]

References

External links

• Beck – Spår i mörker at the Internet Movie Database
• Beck – Spår i mörker at the Swedish Film Database