Police detectives Andreas and Simon are called to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple. When Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet, he slowly loses his grip on justice, and Simon has to restore his balance between right and wrong.
The way the twists occur tends to undermine what could be a more interesting, resonant story about the darker aspects of family, parenthood, grief and power.
There are some admirable, if hard-to-watch, moments here, but the film's thriller tendencies are as half-cocked as its compassion for the struggles of parenthood.
Despite the considerable contrivances involved in this saga, A Second Chance is, for much of its length, quite gripping, even though in the wash-up it's not convincing on any level.
Riddled with implausibilities but executed with jaw-clenched earnestness and benefiting from a solid twist, this dark morality tale just about gets away with it.
Bier paints an impeccably bleak picture of her homeland, while Coster-Waldau sells the plot's more implausible moments with a nuanced performance of desperate realism.
