Still on the Swedish theme, Horsemen is one of those straight-to-video crime movies that raises itself above the norm by the dramatic styling of it-boy Swedish music vid director Jonas Akerlund. Dennis Quaid plays a grumpy single dad trying to solve crimes and raise sons and becoming increasingly rumpled and wrinkled as he fails to do terribly well at either. He’s drawn into a serialized set of murders that seem to be based on the biblical mythology of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalpyse – War, Famine, Pestilence and Death. Cue lots of Se7en-esque menace and gore.
So, Horsemen looks really, really good – Winnipeg play wintry stand-in for Chicago (though it looks more like Minnesota to me.) However, the stylistic brilliance fails to secure its collapse back into mediocrity due to a pretty lousy plot and a shocking melodramatic turn by that beautiful but not-scary Chinese actress. Clifton Collins Jr – wasted. I read a review that said: Se7en? More like a four.” I’d give it a three.