FRIDAY FILM / THE INVESTIGATION BOFFO TV SERIES

The Investigation is not flashy television. It is better than that. Created by Tobias Lindholm, the six-part series follows Copenhagen Police’s investigation into the 2017 murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, with Søren Malling, left, playing dogged Chief Inspector Jens Møller and Pilou Asbæk, right, as demanding prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen.

A Quiet Triumph of Dogged Police Work and Danish TV Film 

PillartoPost.org Review--The Danish television series The Investigation is enjoying a retrospective in America. This 2020 masterpiece is a rare crime drama that understands something louder, flashier shows forget: the hardest cases are not solved by genius speeches, sudden confessions, or detectives who break every rule before breakfast. They are solved by patience. By paperwork. By divers going back into cold water. By investigators rechecking land, sea, timelines, currents, jurisdictions, and evidence until the truth has no room left to hide. 

Tobias Lindholm

Created by Tobias Lindholm, the six-part series follows Copenhagen Police’s investigation into the 2017 murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, with Søren Malling playing Chief Inspector Jens Møller and Pilou Asbæk as prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen. The series is notable for what it refuses to do: it does not glamorize the killer, does not build suspense around his personality, and does not turn the crime into lurid entertainment. Lindholm’s focus stays on the investigators, divers, prosecutors, forensic specialists, and Wall’s grieving parents. 

That restraint is what makes The Investigation so strong. It is linear in the best sense of the word. One clue leads to the next. One failed search leads to another search. A theory is tested, discarded, revised, then tested again. The police do not win because they are theatrical. They win because they do not stop. 

The series is especially effective in showing the grinding physical reality of an investigation that spans land and water. Evidence must be recovered from the sea. Search areas have to be mapped and remapped. Divers, dogs, boats, currents, weather, and shoreline discoveries all become part of the story. This is not crime-solving as swagger. It is crime-solving as labor. 

Equally important is the show’s attention to cooperation across borders. This was a Danish case involving a Swedish victim, and the investigation depends on the ability of two nations, two legal systems, and multiple agencies to work toward the same end. The Investigation makes that cooperation feel neither sentimental nor bureaucratic. It simply shows competent people doing necessary work with seriousness and mutual trust. 

There is very little flash here. No car chases. No operatic villain scenes. No detective standing in the rain announcing what it all means. Instead, the series finds drama in persistence. A phone call matters. A meeting matters. A dive matters. A prosecutor asking for stronger evidence matters. 

That may sound plain, but it gives the series uncommon moral weight. Søren Malling’s Jens Møller is the center of that quiet gravity. He is plain. Steadfast and is not played as a tortured maverick. He is weary, humane, methodical, and responsible. He knows that the case is not about him. That is one of the show’s great virtues. 

The slain victim, Kim Wall, left, and her family remain at the emotional center, while the police and prosecutors are presented as public servants carrying a burden that has to be carried correctly. In an age when true-crime drama often confuses darkness with depth, The Investigation takes the more honorable path. It shows that justice is not magic. It is a process. It is cooperation. It is persistence under pressure. It is professionals doing difficult work long after the cameras, headlines, and public fascination have moved on. 

The Investigation is not flashy television. It is better than that. It is disciplined, humane, and deeply respectful of the real work required to solve the most challenging cases. It reminds us that law enforcement, at its best, is not about grandstanding. It is about refusing to quit until the truth is literally brought to the surface.