Kenneth Branagh - who also is one of the executive producers - returns in his Emmy-nominated, British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award-winning role as Wallander, from the celebrated novels by Swedish master Henning Mankell. Branagh was stunning in the first three installments (which debuted on U.S. TV in 2009): paunchy, pale, unshaven, groping through psychological and moral obscurities to catch murderers and terrorists.
For many of Irish actor Kenneth Branagh's fans, the quintessential Branagh role is his youthfully brash but searingly inspirational King Henry V in the 1989 movie adaptation of Shakespeare's play. Well, move over, Hank. Swedish police inspector Kurt Wallander is about to do what the armies of France could not.
Beginning Sunday night (Oct. 3) on PBS, Wallander and Branagh return to Masterpiece Mystery for three new episodes of the series that first aired in May 2009. Based on Swede Henning Mankell's popular crime novels, Wallander II is destined to stamp Branagh's face on Kurt Wallander just as indelibly as the late John Thaw inhabited Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse and David Suchet has become Hercule Poirot.
Branagh was nominated for an Emmy in 2010 for his portrayal of Wallander, a policeman in the historic Swedish seaside town of Ystad. Wallander is a bit of a sad case: His wife has left him, his 20-something daughter feels invisible in his life, and his artist father is failing physically and mentally. There's not much in Wallander's life outside of work, but whether this is cause or effect is not completely clear.
