"Kraftidioten" is the newest project between director Hans Petter Moland, writer Kim Fupz Aakeson and actor Stellan Skarsgård. The three have worked together on quite a few projects in the past already. Here Skarsgård, back from being a priest to Lars von Trier, plays a dedicated hard worked who turns into a mass-murderer after his son is killed by drug dealers. After his wife leaves him, he has basically nothing to lose anymore. Let me say that this film has lots of graphic and bloody violence, so if you are easily-offended by that, better give it a pass.
Apart from Skarsgård, there are two other performances here who deserve a mention. The first is Bruno Ganz ("Downfall") as the Eastern European equivalent to Marlon Brando's godfather. A truly funny performance and I laughed a lot at his face expression when he is in the car near the end and everybody firing at everybody. It had a bit of "Why all this violence?" to it, but I guess it actually meant "Why can't I join in with all of them having the fun?" He did shortly afterward. The second performance comes from Pål Sverre Hagen. He plays the main villain in this movie and you may have seen him in the Oscar-nominated "Kon-Tiki" as Thor Heyerdahl. Anyway, back to this movie, his character reminded me a bit of Gary Oldman in "Léon". He's a very violent, very tragic and a complete sociopath. His interaction with his ex-wife pretty much show the humor in the whole movie. Very, very dark.
I also would like to say a few words about the brother. His statement that the main character could never kill someone was funny given what happened before and his final scene in the car was really good. He knew he was going to die anyway, so he took all the blame and he pulled it off convincingly. He managed to protect his girlfriend/wife and also his brother, at least for a little while. Then there were also the main villain's henchmen, who were gay for whatever reason and had a secret relationship. (I expected one of them to kill the boss in the end, because he killed his partner earlier, but nope.) Another dark humor sequence for this film. Admittedly I did not find this one really funny, just absurd somehow, like many other parts of the film, but not in a bad way.
The central character gets called Dirty Harry at some point, but I felt it is more of a Norwegian "Taken" with a touch of "Kill Bill". In any case, Ganz and Skarsgård had the final scene together. I guess it was to show how they bonded as they killed the man who was responsible for killing their offspring. I did not really like the ending though. It was not bad, but also not one of the highlights of the film, which the ending should usually be for a film to be considered great. And with that I don't mean it has to be a happy ending in any case (I prefer an unhappy ending to a rushed forced happy ending).
If the likes of "In China They Eat Dogs" are your cup of tea, you have a nice almost two hours ahead of you here. It has many funny parts, even the insertions of who just got killed have something funny to them, especially after the fight where almost everybody dies near the end. Or a random scene where somebody gets killed in a car and we see him falling into the airbag which can't save your life if you're hit by a couple bullets, I found funny too. So yeah.. If you don't mind graphic violence, give this one a watch.
Apart from Skarsgård, there are two other performances here who deserve a mention. The first is Bruno Ganz ("Downfall") as the Eastern European equivalent to Marlon Brando's godfather. A truly funny performance and I laughed a lot at his face expression when he is in the car near the end and everybody firing at everybody. It had a bit of "Why all this violence?" to it, but I guess it actually meant "Why can't I join in with all of them having the fun?" He did shortly afterward. The second performance comes from Pål Sverre Hagen. He plays the main villain in this movie and you may have seen him in the Oscar-nominated "Kon-Tiki" as Thor Heyerdahl. Anyway, back to this movie, his character reminded me a bit of Gary Oldman in "Léon". He's a very violent, very tragic and a complete sociopath. His interaction with his ex-wife pretty much show the humor in the whole movie. Very, very dark.
I also would like to say a few words about the brother. His statement that the main character could never kill someone was funny given what happened before and his final scene in the car was really good. He knew he was going to die anyway, so he took all the blame and he pulled it off convincingly. He managed to protect his girlfriend/wife and also his brother, at least for a little while. Then there were also the main villain's henchmen, who were gay for whatever reason and had a secret relationship. (I expected one of them to kill the boss in the end, because he killed his partner earlier, but nope.) Another dark humor sequence for this film. Admittedly I did not find this one really funny, just absurd somehow, like many other parts of the film, but not in a bad way.
The central character gets called Dirty Harry at some point, but I felt it is more of a Norwegian "Taken" with a touch of "Kill Bill". In any case, Ganz and Skarsgård had the final scene together. I guess it was to show how they bonded as they killed the man who was responsible for killing their offspring. I did not really like the ending though. It was not bad, but also not one of the highlights of the film, which the ending should usually be for a film to be considered great. And with that I don't mean it has to be a happy ending in any case (I prefer an unhappy ending to a rushed forced happy ending).
If the likes of "In China They Eat Dogs" are your cup of tea, you have a nice almost two hours ahead of you here. It has many funny parts, even the insertions of who just got killed have something funny to them, especially after the fight where almost everybody dies near the end. Or a random scene where somebody gets killed in a car and we see him falling into the airbag which can't save your life if you're hit by a couple bullets, I found funny too. So yeah.. If you don't mind graphic violence, give this one a watch.