DVD Review - Crimes of Passion

Crimes of Passion *** (NR) This three-disc DVD set delivers six 90-minute movies made for Swedish TV, progressively following the wholesomely lovely Puck (Tuva Novotny), an academician with a penchant for murder. The first takes her to an island with a colleague and his old friends, including one handsome prof (Linus Wahlgren) on whom she has a crush. But a swirl of old affairs and bubbling secrets starts leaving a trail of bodies. Enter Commissioner Christer (Ola Rapace), an old friend of her potential beau, and a kindred sleuthing spirit. Puck helps solve the crimes. Each episode takes the relationships among the three principals further, while thrusting them into new mysteries and murders, in otherwise idyllic rural settings.

Puck becomes something of a younger, cuter Jessica Fletcher, though less central to the plots. She actually lets the cops do their job. Even so, at some point people will stop inviting her, due to the number of corpses she seems to attract wherever she visits. The series is set in the early 1950s, giving a nice, old-fashioned simplicity to the proceedings without DNA testing, cell phones or the security cameras that dominate TV and theatrical fare in the genre. It also intertwines each mystery with the complicated relationships among the three principals, adding zest, and another layer of suspense, to the six tales.

Rapace, ex-husband of Dragon-Tattooed Noomi, bears a strong resemblance to St. Louis native John Hamm. Novotny’s fresh-faced demeanor makes her a disarmingly deft amateur investigator. The gore and sensuality levels are mild enough to make this accessible to the majority of home viewers. Most importantly, the scripts are well-written, dangling plenty of plausible motives and suspects on the way to presenting suitable solutions. (2/28/14)