REVIEW: 'Last Will'

From the producer of the Millennium trilogy comes this Swedish crime drama about a female journalist who becomes a front-running witness to an extravagant murder. Click here for movie times.

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Being firmly of the opinion that Europe has overtaken America as the finest provider of mainstream contemporary thrillers, I was very excited to see Last Will.

The film proves an entertaining watch but stops a tad short of greatness. The various thriller tropes – an assassination at a public gala; crusading journalists battling with the cops; opportunistic witnesses on the run; an underlying conspiracy – are slickly presented but their main point of difference remains the Swedish setting.

As the journalist, frustratingly hamstrung by the fact she was a witness to the murder she so desperately wants to write about, Malin Crepin is a very sympathetic protagonist. She’s a woman with something to prove in a man’s game and her plight is very easy to root for. The grand implications of the murder she is investigating contrast nicely with issues in her domestic life and the film does an admirable job of suspending disbelief despite all the conspiratorial behaviour.

The film’s marketing pushes comparisons to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but this is a much more digestible confection. Last Will may feel a little bit generic when you remove the Scandinavian origins but you could do a lot worse for an evening’s entertainment.

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