Small Town Killers (2017) Poster

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5/10
Nicely weird but not so funny
Morten_55 January 2019
"Small Town Killers", the eighth feature film by Danish writer-director Ole Bornedal, suffers from a somewhat weak script, but it has a nicely weird and cynical tone and Ulrich Thomsen and Nicolas Bro make a charming pair of friends.
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1/10
Small Town Boredom
werwolf_dk15 January 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Watchers of Danish movies from abroad, who are fairly acquainted with Danish geography must get the impression that Jutland is predominantly populated by hillbillies. Some examples: The Art of Crying (Peter Schønau Fog, 2006) with a psychopathic pedophile father. Terribly Happy (Henrik Ruben Genz,2008) where Jutland is like a zone where people are almost departed to, of course with its own rules that are only loosely connected to the common set of rules in the rest of the country.Bornedal also used this cliché of inbreeding xenophobes in his own Deliver Us From Evil (2009). In his latest effort to make a film, Bornedal point of departure is not any similarity with any resemblance of reality. There are 2-D caricatures. The fat man with tight clothes - very funny, ha-ha. His colleague who is sexually starving man with the too bushy eyebrows and an empty staring.He talks to the buttocks of his wife, but hardly to its owner. The Desperate Housewives - constantly wasted and enjoying the company of the Swedish salsa teacher - who is (for the women so near and so distant) gay. There are not many other people in Nibe. Why should there be people in the street? Bornedal is not interested in people, but only in travesties. Like the spastic waiter in the local restaurant, who talks "funnily". So Ib and Edward decide to boost their sex lives, not by taking mistresses, but by getting rid of their wives. It seems that you get easily access to the Dark Net in Nibe, as they have no problem to hire a hit-man from Russia. Surprisingly Edward is acquainted with this term. Of course they try to chicken out, but the Russian hit-man is not so easy to get rid of. The main problem is that he needs to be sober in order to travel back to his native Russia. Of course being Russian the hit-man is constantly on booze, when not killing unhappy people. We get a hint that he was in Afghanistan, but as it is the norm in this film, Bornedal is not interested in his persons. At least he tries to be politically incorrect when the Russian killer and an Afghani taxi driver, an admirer of Bin Laden, meet. - When Gritt and Ingrid figure out that they are the target of a killer, they hire a killer of their own, British Miss Nippleworthy (ha-ha!). Being a woman, she works, of course, wit poison. Any smiles until now? Is this hilarious? Not at all. Far-fetched at best. However, this misery has to end at some point. We have filled up the pot of clichés, now we just need to glue a happy ending to it. Is it credible? Why would Bornedal care? This concoction was like an adult version of Danish "family films" (Far til fire ...; The Crumbs - ... My Sister's Kids...). Although the persons in these films have more depth than the characters in Small-Town Killers, you will find there also more types than persons in these unambitious family movies. Thia movie has until now harvested universally unfavorable reviews. It seems that Bornedal is getting more and more an overrated director, as his good features have become distant history already.
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1/10
Warning this is a spoiler!
larsbernstorff27 May 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Warning this is a spoiler!

Complete failure

Really the worst from Ole Bornedahl ever. The actors act poorly. Lousy plot, bad composition and ridiculous concept. Don't waste your money and time on this crap!
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1/10
Embarrassing
JerlskovFlunkhede23 February 2019
What happened to Ole Bornedal?

The failure is even worse, considering the four main actors are actually very competent.

Skip this one.
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2/10
Really bad
jasonballerup2 March 2020
This is one of the worst movies I have seen. It is not funny at all but extremely boring. The actors are well known but play like it was a school play. Don't waste your time on this movie.
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8/10
Death Becomes Them
thesar-211 April 2018
In most horror movies, namely slashers, sex kills. In dark comedies, it's the opposite.

Wow. I kinda thought I might enjoy this experience, but had no idea how much I'd admire this film and writing. Don't think I've seen too many films from this country, but I'm definitely open-minded to other Area's art. And the more and more I discover, the more I see the world's kicking Hollywood's ass.

The synopsis isn't very easy this time around, which has to be the sign of a well-made movie. But, I'll try. Without spoiling too much, of course. There's a lot to discover and have fun with here.

Two not-so-great Danes are unhappy (pay attention to that point) due to lack of sex from their wives and consider divorce so they can somehow run off and have happy sex lives with different women. But, apparently unbeknownst to them and very known to their wives, their huge net worth comes into play with the women vowing to take more than their share in the proposed divorce. So, why not hire a hitman from Russia to kill them and then go off to live a nice, sex life elsewhere. What could possibly go wrong?

Literally, I just described 5% of the movie. It's basically Denmark's version of a Simon Pegg/Nick Frost screwball, albeit dark, comedy. Some might call it theft, I see it as an homage and someone putting their heart into honoring two obvious heroes of theirs.

I'm getting used to reading subtitles as the bulk of my films I see now are foreign (from the USA,) but dang it, these people spoke too fast! Before I could finish reading the statements below, they were onto their next quote. Mercifully, I could eventually follow both the words and the action/comedy and a good fourth was in English from the people called into to take care of their problems. (Yeah, people. It gets complicated and yet, all works well together.)

It covers a lot of ground, meaning, it's offensive to many cultures and types of people, but not necessarily going overboard or solving anything. Its heart is fine and the comedic moments made me laugh out loud more than a dozen or so times. Definitely recommended.

***

Final thoughts: Nicolas Bro aka Nick Frost was probably my favorite of the characters (next to Igor, the Russian Stereotype Hitman) and his refusal to shave in the later part of the movie (you'll see) had me rolling. I was just sad that more of his comedic talent didn't show up until then.
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8/10
A dark quirky comedy
SFZ20 August 2017
This is a dark quirky comedy taking place in a rural area of Denmark, very much in the style of Blinkende Lygter/Flickering Lights (2000) and Adams Æbler/Adam's Apples (2005).

In many of the scenes we follow either one or the other of two pairs of actors. The husbands pair are two friends and colleagues played Ulrich Thomsen and Nicolas Bro. Their wives played by Mia Lyhne and Lene Maria Christensen make up the other team. They are supported well by Marcin Dorocinski, Søren Malling and Gwen Taylor as well as Elsebeth Steentoft, Birthe Neumann and Ole Thestrup in smaller roles.

At just 86 minutes playing time it has a very fitting length for a comedy and is one of those movies I really can't find any fault with. It turned out to be exactly the kind of movie it advertises to be. I really enjoyed it and was well entertained all the way through and had some really good laughs on the way.

Good job Ole Bornedal, you're almost forgiven for the 1864 TV-series!

8/10
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