Questioning a dodgy invoice ... Corruption unravelled at the heart of Norwegian politics, law and the media ... Miss Lumière watches and reviews the eight part SBS series Heksejakt (Witch Hunt) ... Inspired by events in the real world ... Whistleblowing at its most courageous
Not exactly Scandi Noir, more Norwegian Gris with good lighting, this legal thriller streaming on SBS On Demand, is worth watching for one reason - schadenfreude.
In this case, it's the pure joy of watching the fortunes of a slimy and corrupt legal firm, unravel over eight glittering episodes.
Inspired by real events, Witch Hunt (Heksejakt) is a slickly made drama about the lengths corporate interests (read business, politics, media and the law) will go to silence whistleblowers.
Machiavellian doesn't begin to describe the modus operandi of the polished, predatory partners at Oslo law firm, Biermann & Gude.
Their hyper-modern offices overlooking a glacial lake seem to reflect the cold hard steel in their veins, particularly when it comes to protecting a corrupt relationship with local billionaire businessman and bully Peer Eggen (Mads Ousdal).
Eggen's charm is evident in the opening scene, when we watch him take aim and blast a young deer to death, while his legal bumboy Jan Gunnar Askeland (Preben Hodneland) a senior partner at Biermann & Gude, looks on nervously.
We soon learn that Eggen's business has enabled the firm to become obscenely wealthy.
Ida Waage (an increasingly harried looking Ingrid Bolso Berdal) is Biermann & Gude's trusted chief financial officer, who makes the mistake of questioning a dodgy invoice from a company she's never heard of, Klant Consulting.
It looks like money laundering, it smells like money laundering and, Ida soon discovers, it's on spin cycle.
Askeland and the firm's boss PK (Ola G. Furuseth, who might look fetching in an SS uniform if he wasn't always wearing Masters-of-the-Universe braces) at first play things uber cool.
But after it becomes apparent that Ida is cursed with a moral centre and an inability to turn a blind eye, things get more noir than gris.
Ida Waage: the law firm accountant cursed with a moral centre
The situation turns decidedly ugly when Ida is falsely accused by her employers of "harassment" and "racism" in an attempt to discredit her.
As the plot thickens, almost threatening to curdle, we see what is at stake and for whom.
Ida's stepson, a keen young lawyer (Axel Boyum) looking for promotion at B & G, is compromised by his ambition, her feckless husband (Christian Skolmen) proves less than supportive, there's a washed-up boozy investigator (a shaggily convincing Fridtjov Såheim) from the Economic Crime Authority, obsessed with Eggen's ill-gotten gains, a crooked Minister of Justice doing deals for love, and a ruthless young tabloid journalist (Sara Khorami) on the trail of Norway's biggest corruption scandal.
Just like real life, everyone crosses the line, only here, rather deliciously, most of them get found out.
It's clear the writers (Siv Rajendram Eliassen and Anna Bache-Wiig) relish exposing the venality and cowardice at the core of the legal profession, the media and politics.
As Ida tells her exasperated husband on the cusp of outing the corrupt relationship between Biermann & Gude and Eggen on national media:
"I'm only telling the truth. How dangerous can that be?"
Witch Hunt more than answers that question. Watch it and be afraid. Very afraid.
Heksejakt from Jakob Ingimundarson on Vimeo.