7/31/2016

Klown/Klovn - The Movie (2010) - Nørgaard, Hvam and Christensen strike comedy gold



+ Best Danish Movie of the Year

The upbeat, well-made poster for Mikkel Nørgaard's Klown
  
Klown is the feature debut of Mikkel Nørgaard (Klown Forever/Klovn Forever (2015)), written by co-stars Casper Christensen (Player (2013)) and Frank Hvam (What's Wrong with This Picture?/Tid til Forandring (2004)), based on the Klown/Klovn sitcom (2005-09) in which the two portray characters based on themselves in their own names.

Frank is going with his best friend and work companion on a canoe trip, which Casper has named 'Tour de Pussy', but when it turns out that Frank's long-time girlfriend Mia is pregnant and that she has doubts about Frank's qualities as a father figure, Frank kidnaps his prepubescent nephew Bo and brings him along on the manly trip to prove her wrong...

The two beloved characters have all the maturity of their much younger real-life counterparts in Michael Noer's documentary The Wild Hearts/De Vilde Hjerter (2008), but Frank's intentions are, for the most part, honorable, which redeems him at least. The acting is good, (SPOILER perhaps with the exemption of Christensen's breakdown scene), and in a couple of scenes even reach touching heights.
Drama-wise the film is a well-oiled machine. The video camera aesthetic of the TV-series is maintained, which is okay. One is chagrined and laughing over and over again in this very successful adaptation into a new format. SPOILER The ending, which features pictures of Bo's penis shown at his confirmation party, (made using a costly prosthetic), will cross the line for many audiences.


Related posts:

Mikkel Nørgaard: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Klown Forever/Klovn Forever (2015) - A raunchy laugh smash
The Keeper of Lost Causes/Kvinden i Buret (2013) or, Grumpy and Ethnic Find a Woman in a Pressure Chamber
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 





Here is a clip from the sequel, Klown Forever (2015)

Cost: 14 mil. DKK, equal to approximately 2.1 mil. $
Box office: 13.2 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Klown was released December 16 (Denmark) and runs 100 minutes. It was filmed from July - October 2010 in Copenhagen and around in Jutland, Denmark. 4.9 mil. DKK of the budget was granted from the Danish Film Institute. The film is reportedly the 2nd highest grossing Danish film of all time. It received good reviews and managed to become (in the two weeks up to New Year's Eve) the biggest Danish film in the country of the year with 481k admissions. By the end of its run, it had sold 848,500 tickets in Denmark, which is spectacular. In North America, it was shown at a couple of smaller festivals and grossed 68k $. It did better business in Iceland and Norway, but racked up almost its total gross in its native Denmark: 12 mil. $ (90.1 % of the total gross). A sequel came out in 2015, and the rights to a remake have been secured by Warner Bros., possibly to star Danny McBride. Klown is certified fresh at 71 % with a 6.1 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Klown?

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