3 out of 5

Directed by: Richard Holm

Some incredibly thrilling moments and big payoffs stumble over the last few films’ intertwining threads and a few hurried and clumsy elements.

We’re getting into difficult Falk-lands (hyuck) here as we find ourselves in a position amidst several big plotlines, which – if I had better subtitles or maybe a better understanding of Swedish police practices I could’ve spotted earlier, but otherwise – which don’t necessarily have to deal with each other except for some shared players.  While this has been the m.o. for the final five Falk films, previously it was only ever foreground events and one sidelined story which would eventually step up to be dealt with.  We would touch base with the “other” tale, and eventually elements would inform each other satisfyingly for a pay-off.  It was a good balance between and ongoing storylines and one-offs, which any long-running series generally has to learn to deal with.

At the end of that 12 film run, it seemed that, should the series continue, its sideline-to-main plot would be sussing out a traitor in the cops’ midst, who’d been feeding the bad guys undercover contacts’ names.  It would’ve been easy to leave the other elements from those films – primarily gang leader / sometimes informant Seth – behind, but in the vein of co-creator Anders Nilsson, our writers (Tage Åström and director Holm) have decided just to let everything sort of tumble slowly forward.  Seth of course gets released from jail; there is no dramatic sting to out the traitor.  The bad guys go back to gang dealings and in-fighting, and the cops continue to try to prevent crime while doing what they can to figure out who they can trust.

A new wrinkle gets added right away when liaison / copper / whatever Johan (I sort of love that I have no clear understanding of his role) goes on an escort mission and ends up getting manipulated by the mob into working for them via the age-old methods of threat and coercion.

So now we have:
-Seth’s gang rivalries
-Heavy-duty assault weapon shipments involving the Croatians
-Johan’s mob involvement
-The cop traitor

…All of which are multi-film threads – related but not necessarily entwined as far as we know – that keep being touched on but not fully resolved.

Blodsdiamanter’s job, it seemed, was to properly twist all of those threads together.  Which doesn’t take that much work, since the previous films have done their job of setting out the pieces, but it makes film 15 a bit harried in its construction, though leading to some excellent moments.

The bulk of the film focuses on Niklas and Matte’s undercover op in the Croatian’s gym, the former doing his best to get closer to the backroom dealings while Matte cautions danger.  Danger certainly eventually occurs, leading to some of the movie’s most nail-biting sequences – and excellent acting from Niklas’ Alexander Karim, who flip-flops believably between trying to take control of the situation and outright fear.

Seth, in his dealings with the Croatians, is in and out of the gym, dodging GSI’s Sophie’s calls while he tries to sort out some money issues and his rivalry with brother/enemy Jack, which also leads to some excellent spot-moments of push-and-pull between the two.

Meanwhile, in a rather cheap and disconnected sequence, Johan is contacted by his mob boss and he tries to use the moment to spin the tables and squeeze some info out of said boss.  While the scene is reminiscent of Johan’s penchant for improvised violence, the section of the movie feels like it’s almost shot for practice, Eklund going full gangster while the camera sort of sits there (hiding the background, I assume, to mask budget limitations), and the other involved actor just doesn’t match his intensity.  The scene does matter overall, but is still one more jumbled piece in the box.

Blodsdiamanter moves a lot of Johan elements forward and actually includes one of the series’ more terrifying (and well executed) moments, but these same elements have been snowballing and thus require that much more effort to keep then going.  What’s good is that the movie successfully seems to cinch them together a bit more tightly, but the entry is also saved more by the series’ consistency of tone and its actors’ comfort in the world than the film itself.

The Johan film series has often been about juggling elements in favor of one focus over another, and occasionally we hit these films where the pins (to mix metaphors) are steadied and reset.  Which, yes, does mean we are set up for a potential strike in the next entries.