2014 · drama · thriller

A Second Chance

Directed by Susanne Bier · 1h 43m · 2014

Detectives and best friends Andreas and Simon lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But all that changes when the two of them are called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple, caught in a vicious cycle of violence and drugs. It all looks very routine – until Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet. The usually collected policeman finds himself confronted with his own powerlessness and is shaken to his core. As Andreas slowly loses his grip on justice, it suddenly becomes up to the unruly Simon to restore the balance between right and wrong.

Our read: A Second Chance (2014) reads as a heavy, steady, grounded drama · thriller entry — extreme in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook.