Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Unlikely Murderer’ On Netflix, A Fictionalized Account Of The Real Murder Of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme

The Unlikely Murderer takes the information presented by Thomas Pettersson in his book of the same name and tries to come up with a fictional story of how an unassuming graphic designer named Stig Engström not only killed Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986, but also managed to elude being arrested for the assassination all the way up until his death in 2000. Was he just that shrewd, was law enforcement just that inept, or was it a little bit of both?

THE UNLIKELY MURDERER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After a disclaimer that says “Based on an unsolved crime”, there’s a graphic that says “February 28, 1986 – 11:21 PM” Two shots ring out; a roundish man is holding the gun, looking over the injured man on the ground while the victim’s wife screams.

The Gist: The man runs away, and fumbles around as he runs, trying to get rid of the gun. Multiple people see him running down the alleyways and streets, a man in a newsboy hat and glasses. As bystanders try to save the man who’s shot, the police and ambulance arrive. The officer in charge of the scene has no idea that the man shot is Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme (Peter Viitanen) until his wife Lisbet (Cilla Thorell) tells him who they are. Palme dies at the hospital, though he had little chance to begin with.

The man who shot Palme, Stig Engström (Robert Gustafsson), stumbles into the building where he works. He comes home to his wife and acts traumatized.

Meanwhile, eyewitness accounts, including from Palme’s son Mårten (David Andersson), report a man fitting Stig’s description hanging near the Palmes as they left the theater that night. Arne Irvell (Peter Andersson), head of the national police’s homicide division is irate at how casually his department has been handling this, not even securing the crime scene properly.

Stig starts telling his “harrowing” tale of being a witness to the murder, first to his neighbor, then to the editor of the newspaper that had the eyewitness descriptions of him in its story. The way he tells it, he heard the shots then tried to save Palme. The more he tells the story, the more his story shifts. He even calls in to work and says he’s being called for questioning when he isn’t.

Hans Holmer (Mikael Persbrandt), the county police chief, takes over the investigation, and, even as the tips flow in and he gets more eyewitness accounts describing the same round, thin-lipped man with glasses, he thinks the assassination was a professional job, as does his “brain trust.” Meanwhile, Stig keeps speaking to the press and looking for stories that feature his “eyewitness account.”

Irvell, who’s been sidelined, has his men mapping out the scene. When Holmer publishes the sketch a young illustrator made of the suspect she saw, one that doesn’t at all resemble any of the other descriptions, Irvell and his men try to recreate the scene on their model. They realize they’ve questioned everyone on the scene… except for Stig Engström.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Strangely, the vibe that we get from The Unlikely Murderer is akin to Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK. Why? Because both are filled with what ifs and fictional encounters based on the very real assassination of a world leader.

Our Take: Entering the story, written by Wilhelm Behrman and Niklas Rockström, you need to know a little of the information about the case in order to get an idea that the story of Engström’s involvement in Palme’s murder isn’t just presented as fictionalized for “dramatic license” purposes. While it’s not presented as a wholly invented story, there’s a reason why Engström wasn’t named the prime suspect in Palme’s murder until 2020, 20 years after his death. And even then, authorities acknowledged that the evidence was circumstantial and wouldn’t have withstood scrutiny at trial.

With that bit of knowledge in place, The Unlikely Murder becomes an entertaining yarn about a seemingly unassuming graphic designer who works for an insurance company thrusting himself in the middle of one of the highest-profile murder investigations in Sweden’s history. There isn’t much of an examination of what Engström’s possible motive is, at least not yet, but Gustafsson plays Engström with creepy proficiency, not giving him much of a personality beyond a strong desire to get attention for what he claims he saw.

The other side of the story involves just how confused and disorganized the investigation was. Competing law enforcement teams, mistakes made in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, destruction of evidence, conflicting eyewitness accounts… It’s not hard for the show’s writers, based on Pettersson’s book, to paint a picture of how this schlubby, attention-seeking man managed to evade authorities for 14 years.

The first episode takes time to organize around both of these ideas , but once they both gel near the end of the episode, the direction the writers want to go in is pretty clear. It makes for a story that clearly hasn’t been seen much on TV, even in the prestige era. And, given the disclaimers at the start and end of the episode, the writers and producers want to make it clear that this is a work of fiction and should be enjoyed as such. With that knowledge, The Unlikely Murder becomes less of an historical account and more of a complex murder mystery.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: When Irvell is told that no one has brought Engström in for questioning, he exasperatingly says, “For fuck’s sake!”

Sleeper Star: Peter Andersson does good work as Irvell, showing both his impatience with his own police force’s bungling of the case and the relish that he has in investigating the case under the radar of higher ups and media scrutiny.

Most Pilot-y Line: As Holmer takes the investigation in the wrong direction, he asks one of his “brain trust” why the shooting couldn’t have been just a random nutjob who saw Palme. “Just as he happened to have his Magnum in his pocket?” the detective says derisively.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Unlikely Murderer takes one of the world’s highest-profile unsolved murders and tries to figure out just how it stayed unsolved, when it seems that Olof Palme’s killer was hiding in plain sight, and that speculation makes for an interesting story.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Unlikely Murderer On Netflix