In Order Of Disappearance. (15.)
Directed by Hans Peter Moland.
Starring Stellan Skarsgard, Pal Sverre Hagen, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen and Bruno Ganz. 116 mins
The future is an encroaching dark cloud in which we will all struggle on until we work ourselves into our graves and some people are already chained to their yoke. What kind of world is it where perfectly respectable character actors find themselves being pressed into service as action heroes when they reach retirement age? Following Liam Neeson's move into that arena, 64-year-old Swedish leading man/ Hollywood support player Stellan Skarsgard turns himself into a reluctant killing machine. This being Scandinavia though, this is a somewhat droller killing spree than is the Hollywood norm.
Nils Dickman is a snowplough driver whose efforts keeping the roads open have seen him presented with a Citizen of the Year award. Then he finds out that his son has been murdered, an innocent bystander caught up in a drug war. So he does what any grieving father would do: he embarks on a very linear trail of revenge starting with his son's killers and working his way up to the top ranks of the drug gang. The mechanics and practicalities of how an ordinary man becomes a killing machine are rather glossed over; the film is more macabre death farce than straight revenge drama.
Director Moland (A Somewhat Gentle Man) orchestras proceedings with a certain comic mundanity as he portrays people stuck in their cycles of violence. (The Norwegian title Kraftidioten seems to roughly translate into power mad.) It certainly has some moments of humour and cherishable touches, though the suspicion that this dry black humour is just a polite form of glib nihilism is never wholly dispelled.
Directed by Hans Peter Moland.
Starring Stellan Skarsgard, Pal Sverre Hagen, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen and Bruno Ganz. 116 mins
The future is an encroaching dark cloud in which we will all struggle on until we work ourselves into our graves and some people are already chained to their yoke. What kind of world is it where perfectly respectable character actors find themselves being pressed into service as action heroes when they reach retirement age? Following Liam Neeson's move into that arena, 64-year-old Swedish leading man/ Hollywood support player Stellan Skarsgard turns himself into a reluctant killing machine. This being Scandinavia though, this is a somewhat droller killing spree than is the Hollywood norm.
Nils Dickman is a snowplough driver whose efforts keeping the roads open have seen him presented with a Citizen of the Year award. Then he finds out that his son has been murdered, an innocent bystander caught up in a drug war. So he does what any grieving father would do: he embarks on a very linear trail of revenge starting with his son's killers and working his way up to the top ranks of the drug gang. The mechanics and practicalities of how an ordinary man becomes a killing machine are rather glossed over; the film is more macabre death farce than straight revenge drama.
Director Moland (A Somewhat Gentle Man) orchestras proceedings with a certain comic mundanity as he portrays people stuck in their cycles of violence. (The Norwegian title Kraftidioten seems to roughly translate into power mad.) It certainly has some moments of humour and cherishable touches, though the suspicion that this dry black humour is just a polite form of glib nihilism is never wholly dispelled.
