Slow burn, but worth your time

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2019)

A compelling story, and I sense the screenplay has stuck very close to the novel (I can almost detect specific lines from the book in this). I'm going to read it right away!
Excellent turns from the always honest, complex Tom Hardy, and mercurial Gary Oldman. Joel Kinnaman (I'd only seen him in House of Cards, up to now), Paddy Constantine (can he just be in everything? Playing wonderfully well against type, here), and Noomi Rapace are all compelling ambiguous, and all actors convey excellent depth, subtly communicating the back stories of their characters with deft show-don't-tell. Good, also, to see Jason Clarke. Pretty much my favourite lineup of character actors! All they needed was Jared Harris, but the always wonderful Mark Lewis Jones fills that gap with no problems!
The end is particularly worth the journey, but I can't help but think this storyline would've been better served by a mini-series, allowing more time and pace to develop the themes and context (aspects the thoughtful, experienced and utterly believable cast manage to do, nonetheless). Beautiful production design and sense of culture/society/place. Again, another reason to read the novel.