Cold Case Hammarskjöld

Holy Mary mother of God. There's a difference between having a suspicion that things like this happen and seeing how far reaching the global industrial complex can be and how evil. I am more distributed to be an American after watching this brilliant documentary than ever before. Not to spoil it for you because you should really watch it yourself, but there's more than one deep and disturbing "surprise". Amazing what they uncovered that was there to see all along but no one else asked. Watch it.

Fascinating subject presented in a bland, jumbled way.

Okay, I'm going to spoil the film's allegations here: former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, who perished in a plane crash under mysterious circumstances (factual so far), was actually the victim of an assassination by a covert group of internationally funded Apartheid-allied mercenaries who were also responsible for directly infecting African residents with AIDS in a kind of race war effort under cover of vaccination. Most of the physical evidence is pretty flimsy, relying instead on a few key witnesses, though the implications are substantial if verifiable. There are instances where potential evidence is disproven, and to their credit, the team fully admits their mistake in ascribing potential value to them. Brügger often comes off as a bit manic, which I suppose is justifiable, though there are a few directorial choices that might make you groan; at one point, Brügger ponders allegations that a card placed in Hammarskjöld's shirt color in the wreckage was an ace of spades, the death card, and then multiple times plays a clip of himself playing solitaire where every card is an ace of spades. Ugh. I think it's largely the rampant speculation (thinking out loud) and lack of hard evidence that keeps the film from feeling substantial. (2.5/5)

Very disappointing. Movie about the movie-makers rather than the subject, and the frustration of which of their sources to believe (if any). So they found the wreckage (possibly) but never went to the trouble of getting permission to dig it up. That was the story, but they didn't do it. That is what real investigators would have done, but they were in love with themselves instead. Then they talked to a few people who would not talk to them or lied to them. Their final source, whom they seemed to believe, could so easily have been making everything up that they wanted to hear. Much of it was boring. I nearly fell asleep.

Like all of Brugger's docs so far, refreshing and thought provoking. Wish I could buy on Blu-Ray.

This "documentary" investigating the death (i.e., likely assassination) of former UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold in a mysterious 1961 plane crash shamelessly blurs the line between legitimate journalism and cheeky speculation, with consequences that extend far beyond the demise of one individual. What starts out seeming like a valid inquiry into a long-unsolved mystery regrettably degenerates into a questionable spectacle that doesn't seem to take its own purpose seriously, prompting viewers to ask, "So what's the point of all this?" While the film does uncover what could be a horrific untold story if definitively proven true, the credibility of the information underlying such a possibility is undercut by a filmmaker who could ultimately just be jagging everybody's chain -- and with material that's no joking matter. And the problem with that is, should viable evidence ever surface behind the truth of these incidents, it's likely to be discounted by the travesty depicted here.

This doc is bonkers. The quest is to find out more details on the death of a former UN Secretary who died in a plane crash. The journey is a long ride down the bizarre lanes of conspiracy theories and truth. Where do we land? It's hard to tell if we found anything out in the end, but the journey is well worth it! Final Score: 8.0/10

Gesundheit. So this is all about Sweedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld. Back in the 1950s, he served as the Secretary-General for the United Nations. In 1961, the plane he was traveling on crashed under suspicious circumstances over Africa, and this is about a film director (Mads Brügger) and a private investigator (Göran Björkdahl) trying to figure out what exactly happened over half a century after the fact. Now if I am being really honest, I have no idea how this made it into my queue. I knew nothing about it other than the fact that the poster looked strikingly similar to that of The Report. I didn't even know that it was a documentary, so once I figured that out, I adjusted my expectations accordingly. This is an interesting documentary feature, and I feel like I learned something. Now the most interesting angle to this documentary is that it starts as one thing and then slowly morphs into another. The material is presented over about a dozen chapters, and by the time you reach the final one, you would have never guessed that this would be the endpoint when you consider the beginning. It becomes very apparent that something is fishy, and you have to admire just how much they were able to uncover with hard work and persistence. So many red flags are raised when they start dusting off covered tracks, and with the number of bad photocopies and doctored documents they had to sift through, it is surprising that they were able to make any progress at all. This is a cover-up of scary proportions, and if nothing else, this movie accomplishes one thing: it makes you wary of the government and the potential shady dealings conducted in the shadows or behind locked doors. Now I'm not close to this material, I just watched this as an everyday moviegoer. Being that this is over two hours long, I do think that this could have been told more efficiently. This is presented in the parameters of watching Mads put together a documentary, and the only thing I feel that really accomplishes is that it adds minutes to the runtime. There are a lot of names to keep track of, and I think this would actually function far better as a mini-series you'd catch on Netflix, especially given that it is already divided so neatly into chapters. I think this is a very engaging subject matter and is worth your time, I just think that it could have used a bit more polish in the execution.

An intriguing, interesting presentation of a grim and shocking series of events. Lacks a nail-in-the-coffin ending, but gives viewers something to debate afterwards.

Mads Brügger is like a poor man's Werner Herzog. He even admits as much at one point in the documentary. That being said, he still somehow stumbles into a deeply troubling conspiracy with horrific and far reaching implications.