Wallander: Sidetracked / Firewall / One Step Behind

Kenneth Branagh stars as detective Kurt Wallander in thrilling adaptations of three best-selling crime novels by Henning Mankell. Your heart goes out to the brilliant but only-too-human Wallander as he searches for the truth behind shocking murders. What connects the flaming suicide of a young woman and the scalping murder of a government minister? What does the brutal killing of a cab driver have to do with cyber-terrorists? And how to catch a Midsummer's Eve assassin? Enjoy fiendishly inventive plots, unwound in Sweden's spectacular countryside.

In Sidetracked, a young woman burns herself to death in front of Wallander. Later a former politician is found brutally murdered – killed with an axe and scalped. As the deaths continue, the victims killed in similar ways, Wallander must reveal the link between the cases.

In Firewall, Wallander investigates two seemingly separate incidents – a heart attack victim and the brutal murder of a cab driver by two teenage girls. As Wallander delves deeper into why the girls committed the murder, the two cases lead to one conspiracy that stretches far beyond the borders of Sweden.

And in One Step Behind, three teenagers are murdered on midsummer’s eve, each with a bullet to the head. When one of Wallander’s colleagues is found killed in exactly the same way, Wallander must discover the connection…

Sidetracked

What connects the shocking suicide of a young woman and the vicious murder of a government minister? Inspector Kurt Wallander’s investigation uncovers wrongdoing and corruption that extends to the heart of the Swedish establishment.
In a field full of bright yellow rapeseed, a teenage girl is seen wandering alone. Inspector Kurt Wallander is called to investigate. Before his eyes, the girl douses herself in petrol and burns to death. Her actions leave Wallander shocked, disturbed and baffled. A hunt for the girl’s identity begins.
On the home front, Wallander, recently estranged from his wife, has moved into his own place. Linda, his grown-up daughter, is keeping an eye on her dad as he adjusts to bachelor life. Wallander’s relationship with his own father, Povel, is difficult and, as it becomes clear that Povel’s health is in decline, Wallander strives for a reconciliation with him.
Meanwhile, Wallander’s workload soars as three apparently motiveless murders are committed. The victims are all male: a former minister of justice, a small-time criminal and a rich playboy. All are viciously killed, their scalps inexplicably taken. Wallander and his team investigate, determined to discover who the killer is and how these murders are connected.

Kurt Wallander...................................Kenneth Branagh
Anne-Britt Hoglund...........................Sarah Smart
Lisa Holgersson...............................Sadie Shimmin
Svedberg............................................Tom Beard
Martinsson.........................................Tom Hiddleston
Nyberg.................................................Richard McCabe
Povel Wallander.................................David Warner
Linda Wallander................................Jeany Spark
Stefan Fredman.................................Nicholas Hoult Skins, About a Boy
Gertrude...............................................Polly Hemingway The Locksmith, Specials, The Mallens
Dolores Maria Santana....................Ashley Madekwe Drop Dead Gorgeous, Secret Diary of a Call Girl
Edvin Salomonsson.........................Jon Laurimore
Dr Malmström..........................Jessica Lloyd
Wetterstedt..........................................Malcolm Tierney Lovejoy, House Of Cards, A Bit Of A Do
Tv Interviewer......................................Jasper Jacob
Sara Bjorkland....................................Joanne Griffiths
PC Norlen............................................Roger Moss
Lars Magnusson...............................John McEnery The Broker’s Man
Arne Carlman.....................................Lars Humble
Anita Carlman....................................Jill Baker Rides, The Broker’s Man, Fish
Erika Carlman....................................Alisa Arnah
Hugo Sandin......................................Michael Culver
Sandin’s Philipino Maid......Corito Chu-Jansson
Mats Ekholm......................................Joseph Chance
Bjorn Fredman..................................Per Lundström
Sven Andersson...............................Neil Boorman
Annette Fredman..............................Sophie Stanton
Ebba Receptionist............................Boel Larsson
Ake Liljegren......................................Erik Larsson
Elizabeth Carlen................................Pandora Clifford
Louise Fredman................................Rebecca Fergusson

Firewall

The death of man from a heart attack and the apparently unrelated murder of a taxicab driver leads Wallander to a conspiracy that stretches far beyond the borders of Sweden.
A man’s body is found at a cash machine, the apparent victim of heart attack. Later, two teenage girls are arrested for the brutal murder of a cab driver. The girls confess to the crime and show no remorse whatsoever. Two open-and-shut cases.
At first, these two incidents seem to have nothing in common but, as Wallander delves deeper into the mystery of why the girls murdered the cab driver, he begins to unravel a plot much more complicated than he initially suspected.
The two cases become one and lead to a conspiracy that stretches to far beyond the borders of Sweden, as anarchic cyber-terrorists threaten to bring chaos and destruction to the developed world.

Kurt Wallander...................................Kenneth Branagh
Anne-Britt Hoglund...........................Sarah Smart
Lisa Holgersson...............................Sadie Shimmin
Svedberg............................................Tom Beard
Martinsson..........................................Tom Hiddleston
Nyberg.................................................Richard McCabe
Povel Wallander................................David Warner
Linda Wallander................................Jeany Spark
Ella Lindfeldt.......................................Orla Brady Mistresses, Shark, Proof, Wuthering Heights (1998)
Sonja Hokberg..................................Susannah Fielding
Eva Persson.......................................Angela Terence
Johan Lundberg................................Bo Von Gregerfeldt
Erik Hökberg......................................Guy Henry
Susana Hökberg..............................Rebecca Egan
Mother (Eva)......................................Ysobel Gonzalez
Jonas Landahl....................................Christian Roe
Cristian Suneson..............................Michael Mueller
Lars Modin..........................................Neil Conrich
Robert Modin.....................................Luke Allen-Gale
Tynnes Falk.........................................Toni Hedin
Marianne Falk....................................Annabel Mullion
Worker.................................................Lukas Loughran
Attendant............................................Henry Miller
Custody Guard.................................Matthias Torbjörnsson
Sonja’s Solicitor................................Fabian Fahlgren
Eva’s Solicitor....................................Katarina Lundgren-Hugg
Hillbilly..................................................Matti Isokääntä

One Step Behind

Three young friends are shot in a wood during an elaborate Midsummer’s Eve picnic. Then one of Inspector Wallander’s colleagues is also found murdered. Is this the same killer, and what could the connection be?
It is Midsummer’s Eve. In the woods a party of three young adults, in period fancy dress, enjoy a picnic. Through the trees a lone assassin, armed with a gun, approaches…
A mother, slightly hysterical, arrives at the police station. She has received a postcard – her daughter has gone to Europe with two friends, on a whim. The three were last seen heading off to the woods for a Midsummer’s Eve picnic. Inspector Kurt Wallander wonders what the problem is; presumably the handwriting is the daughter’s?
Wallander’s colleague, Svedberg, is murdered at home, shot at close range. As details about Svedberg’s personal life emerge, Wallander wonders how well he really knew him. He seems to have been involved with the missing youths from the picnic, but it’s not clear how.
Back in the woods, the bodies of the three friends are discovered, all shot at close range. A fourth girl who was meant to attend the picnic is assassinated while in Wallander’s care and, shortly afterwards, a newlywed couple falls prey to the assassin’s gun.
The assassin plans his murders with meticulous precision, relying on knowledge that is secret to everyone except his victims. How is he privy to this information? Wallander must track a killer who always seems to be one step ahead – and who seems to be following Wallander as much as Wallander is following him.

Kurt Wallander...................................Kenneth Branagh
Anne-Britt Hoglund..........................Sarah Smart
Lisa Holgersson................................Sadie Shimmin
Svedberg............................................Tom Beard
Martinsson..........................................Tom Hiddleston
Nyberg.................................................Richard McCabe
Linda Wallander................................Jeany Spark
Eva Hilstrom.......................................Lorraine Brunning
Lillmor Norman..................................Samantha Best
Klas Boge...........................................Duncan Holmes
Ylva Brink............................................Sanchia McCormack
Duty Officer........................................Johan Lundin
Duty Officer At Svedberg’s...........Hakan Bengtsson
Sture Bjorkland.................................Steven Pacey Blakes 7
Isa Edengren......................................Flora Spencer Longhurst
Elderly Man.........................................John Ringham
Doctor..................................................Anthony Hunt
Erik Lundberg....................................Glen Davies
Lennart Westin..................................Bill Moody
Anna.....................................................Sally Hurst
Lone Kjaer...........................................Jody Watson
Louise/Ake Larstam.........................Ben Meyjes
Maria Hjortberg.................................Emma Pike
Kjell Albisson.....................................Jonathan Aris
Madeleine Rhedin............................Yohanna Idha
News Reporter..................................Ida Gyllensten
Martin Boge.......................................Melker Sorensen
Astrid Hillstrom..................................Anna Ahlerup
Lena Norman.....................................Nicole Briggs
Wedding PhotOgrapher................Peter Briggs
Bride.....................................................Karin Bargqvist
Groom.................................................Johan Svensson
Svedberg’s Caretaker....................Ragnar Landerholm
Isa’s Nurse..........................................Martina Wessman
Wallander’s Nurse...........................Victoria Bloom
Ylva’s Nurse.......................................Renee Jonsson

Adapted by Richard Cottan
From the novels by Henning Mankell
Directed by Philip Martin, Niall MacCormick
Produced by Simon Moseley, Daniel Ahlqvist, Irene Huss
Executive Produced byAndy Harries , Francis Hopkinson, Danielle Cable, Kenneth Branagh, Ole Søndberg , Anni Faurbye, Anne Mensah, Rebecca Eaton, Hans-Wolfgang Jurgan

A Left Bank Pictures/Yellow Bird/TKBFC series co-produced with BBC, Degeto, WGBH Boston and Film i Skane

"Everything about Wallander, from its chilly backdrops to the sparse script and the gloriously crumpled performance of Kenneth Branagh in the lead role, spoke of the heights TV drama can hit when it wants to." Matt Baylis, Daily Express

"...Beautifully lit and shot, sparingly scripted and intelligently acted , this is another 90-minute treat of a murder mystery ... Characteristically bleak but utterly absorbing." Mike Bradley, Observer

"This distinctly superior cop show is both spare and suggestive, and brilliantly acted ... Branagh's face betrayed all we needed to know of his detective's interior life." Andrew Billen, The Times

"[Branagh is] perfect and makes a fabulous detective ... In fact, with the greyness, the cold, the Scandinavian sadness, and a troubled Kenneth Branagh mooching around in the gloom trying to figure out who killed these people so horribly, it's all pretty perfect." Sam Wollaston, Guardian

"...this is the police procedural as existential drama. And it's all the better for it, notably when Branagh's Wallander squares up to his artist father, played with fearsome intensity by David Warner." Jonathan Wright, Guardian

"...richly-satisfying thrillers ... excellent, filmic adaptation, complete with soaring Scandinavian skies and wheat-fields rippling like an ocean. But it wasn't all about style ... already, Kurt Wallander has crept into our imaginations, and is as secure there as Morse or Poirot." Matt Baylis, Daily Express

"...after the first episode, [Wallander] is already a contender for drama series of the year. The first instalment was certainly the best single crime drama this year, and there is an amazing amount of competition for this accolade ... This was a return to quality drama and, to push the Swedish analogy, more like being chaffeured in a new, top-of-the-range Volvo ... Every minute of the production was finely crafted, with photography and direction worthy of the big screen. Yet it was Branagh's range as an actor which was most impressive. He gave Wallander a multi-dimensional character, a man who was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown with work as the only area of his life that was holding him together." David Stephenson, Express on Sunday

"...the treatment was fresh, utterly absorbing and quite frankly Swedish. This was a thing of silences and longueurs, angst and unspoken feelings. Relationships did not work. There was a lot of dysfunction and silent staring. The Swedish setting and landscape added an alien, disorientating feel to the whole thing. It was familiar but different ... It was beautifully filmed and decidedly hypnotic ... The review DVDs sent out to critics were mistakenly washed of colour. Actually this bleached, black-and-white version was much better than the one that was broadcast. Brooding, claustrophobic, Bergman-esque and with an inescapable sense of unease, it was a triumph of noir style even if it was unintended." Stephen Pile, Daily Telegraph

"Wallander looks stunning and its images really do leap off the screen." Neil Hughes, Express on Sunday

"Branagh brings real depth to the character, a troubled man profoundly affected by the crimes he witnesses. They seem to worm their way into his soul." James Rampton, Daily Telegraph

"Branagh conveys the detective's sclerotic horror at the modern world with rumpled charisma. It's not just Wallander who is brought to life: the novelist's deadpan style is perfectly captured in the blank vistas of Swedish sea, sky and municipal architecture. Underneath, however, lies a story of murder and corruption, as capable of freezing the soul as a Ystad winter." Victoria Segal, Sunday Times

"In the first of the three dramas, Branagh's Wallander becomes embroiled in a chain of sexual and emotional abuse that suggests a crash course in Strindberg and the darker films of Ingmar Bergman." Michael Coveney, Independent

"...the BBCs new and very classy trio of whodunnits ... Martin, Cottan and Branagh have made Wallander complex and compelling and created a genuine televisual event rather than a piece of Sunday evening fluff." Emma Jean Sturgess, London Metro

"...this BBC adaptation of Henning Mankell's Swedish thrillers is as vibrantly colourful as anything we've seen on screen for months. The mood is noir, darkened by corruption and human cruelty and compromised justice, but the look is primary-colour picture book, gleaming with northern light ... the camerawork as attentive to the contours of Branagh's stubbly, despairing face as it was to the Swedish locations in which the action took place or the bruised pastels of a Munch sunset." Tom Sutcliffe, Independent

"It looks beautiful; its production values are cinematic, and, having been filmed on location in Ystad, it has a tremendous sense of place. I could swoon at the interiors, which are crammed with the kind of chic, mid-century Scandinavian furniture that people in Islington sweat blood to buy. Even the police station - sorry, the polisstation - features an excellent abstract mural. The writing is good and minimalist, and the plotting, too, because its creators have stayed fairly true to Mankell ... The actors are all capable, and one of them - David Warner, as Kurt's father, Povel - exceptionally so." Rachel Cooke, New Statesman

"So what of Branagh's turn as Kurt Wallander ... He's physically rather good, I think, with his red-rimmed eyes and his bed-head hair. He conveys Wallander's quiet disgust at the world beautifully, the distaste on his face never greater than what we might expect to find there had he just eaten an insufficiently fresh herring. Though Wallander sometimes appears haunted ... he never slips into dreary self-pity - and when Wallander does crack, he makes these scant, salty moments so believable, you share the embarrassment of those around him, lips all frozen stiff." Rachel Cooke, New Statesman

"...Kenneth Branagh an inspired piece of casting ... there's something reassuringly world-weary about the way he carries himself. In Wallander , all baggy-eyed and stubble-chinned, he had a face like an unmade bed covered in iron filings. Conjuring a mood of stoic repression, his intelligently crafted performance stood out like a Gustavian wardrobe in an Ikea showroom ... as Branagh sticks around, the BBC have cracked a new Morse in a Scandinavian postcode." Andrew Anthony, Observer

"The screen itself, the background and the sets, all look wonderful. The production is huge and glossy, the camera set to stun. They've pulled all the big wide lenses out, the dressing and detail is a Scandinavian festival of immaculate good taste - polished wood and despair. It's so pretty, it almost overtakes the production and works against the grain and grit. But Branagh walks through each frame of liberal taste looking suitably awkward and de trop ... Kenneth Branagh is close to being a thespian genius ... Every time he appears on the small screen, he's in a class of his own. A thoughtful, truthful and strong, muscular actor who does real acting as opposed to just ‘being' ... They were lucky to get him as this generic detective, and he was lucky to get Wallander as a great character. He fulfils all the demands of the classic detective: the stoic face, the hurt eyes, the clumsy emotion and the sudden bursts of condensed anger." AA Gill, Sunday Times

"...dazzling drama ... After a breathtaking opening scene in which a suicidal girl set herself on fire, Kenneth Branagh's spellbinding per formance as a dishevelled Swedish detective was faultless." Kevin O'Sullivan, Sunday Mirror

"...a brilliant opening ... it was beautifully shot, and tied up nicely in the end ... Branagh was faultless..." Kira Cochrane, Guardian

"We are totally gripped by this brooding Scando drama starring Kenneth Branagh..." Independent

"Everything is authentic - the look of the actors, the design, the landscapes, the cars, the mobiles, the interiors - to the extent that after an hour or so it begins to feel surprising that it isn't being acted in Swedish and subtitled for a BBC audience. It's all connected together seamlessly - perhaps too seamlessly, a bit too much clever thematics and not quite enough suspense and thrills. A little too much reconciliation and not enough chase. But the suspense and thrills are there, as is the delicious gruesomeness that a good tele-vision detective drama needs to get you really involved..." Ian Beetlestone, Observer

"...classy Sunday night viewing. Branagh's good and so is the supporting cast. But the real scene stealer in Wallander is quite simply the scenery. There's the lush Swedish countryside, magnificent pine forests, windswept beaches and the medieval town with its quaint shops and cafes and beautiful old churches. This is murder at its most picturesque..." Stephen Gordon, Sunday Life

"This is a hugely impressive ‘tec drama, arguably the first Brit offering since early Morse not to dumb down its protagonist." Jonathan Wright, Guardian

"I liked the dazzling cinematography and the way the plot remained clear and well-signposted..." Simon Hoggart, Spectator

"Branagh is as powerful a screen presence as one could wish, while other performances - especially David Warner as Wallander's fragile, vulnerable father - are first-rate ... Wallander is an undoubted hit." Euan Ferguson and Robin McKie, Observer

"It's a bit like Prime Suspect without the gags and with even more gruesome slayings ... the acting is superb, particularly Branagh and David Warner..." Ben Walsh, Independent

"[Episode 3:] Another superb mystery." Observer

"Kenneth Branagh's performance tonight [Episode 3] as Wallander is a masterpiece of vulnerability and despair. It is not some melancholy affectation - this is full-blown misery, as though his bones were being corroded by depression ... Although it ends with a climactic scene that has been done dozens of times in thrillers, on this one occasion it felt entirely believable. This is a stupendous performance." David Chater, The Times

"As the investigation, which becomes a hunt for a serial killer, is played out in the bleached night times of the Scandinavian summer, it's only later you realise that the basic plot here is hoary. It's a criticism that's also a testament to Kenneth Branagh's spellbinding central performance." Jonathan Wright, Guardian

"We got some splendid, old-fashioned, high-production, searingly watchable stories, impeccably acted, wry and smart and cliffhanging, made by people who had gone off and given great thought to scripts. Branagh in the BBC's Wallander, face like an unloved bed..." Observer (round up of 2008 TV)

In Germany, Mankell outsells J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and is the biggest-selling author since the Second World War.

Kenneth Branagh has won over 20 awards for his acting and directing, including Baftas and Emmy awards.