Man on the Roof (1976)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Man on the Roof (1976) – B. Widerberg

The police procedural has long been the province of TV shows, so it is easy to forget that there are movies that may be able to do things better (for example, on a bigger budget or in a less formulaic way).  I’m thinking of Kurosawa’s High and Low or Fincher’s Zodiac.  But Bo Widerberg’s Man on the Roof, based on one of a series of Swedish crime novels featuring homicide cop Martin Beck and his colleagues, should be ranked highly with them. After a bad police lieutenant is murdered in his hospital bed, the wheels start turning and Beck and his weary team (each given enough attention to have a distinct personality) begin their painstaking investigation.  As usual, they start with interviews of people who might know something, record searches, and, yes, examination of evidence at the crime scene.  Slowly this leads to a suspect, but just as things are at their most dreary (as investigations are wont to get), the film explodes into a different kind of situation requiring strategic action from the police (and giving the film its title).  The cops (and Widerberg) handle things just as methodically as in the early part of the film (although less successfully at times), leading to the (not unexpected) conclusion.  Still, it is absorbing all the way.