Player (2013) - Plot and quality head South for Danish comedy team

♥♥

 

Two of Denmark's most famous funny men riding a scooter with big smiles in Southern France try to sell here on the poster for Tomas Villum Jensen's Player

A dull lawyer from Copenhagen is handling a divorce case in Southern France, before he is going to propose to his boss' daughter. But on the trip he has soon lost 10 mil. Danish kroner, as he meets an old friend and a beautiful woman.

 

Player is written by Marie Østerbye (The Rain (2018, VoD TV-series)) and co-writer/co-star Casper Christensen (Dan-Dream (2017)), based on an idea from director Tomas Villum Jensen (Kærlighed ved Første Hik (1999)).

The beautiful woman in France remains a cipher until the end, except for the qualities of having a lovely smile and figure, and seeming nice and more natural than the daughter that the lawyer plans to marry.

Player provokes light chuckles three to four times, but unfortunately it is extinguished of really funny mix-ups, and Christensen probably should have abandoned this type of douche-bag character type after his long engagement with a similar one in the Clown/Klovn universe (TV-series 2005-18 plus three features in 2010, 2015 and 2020.) The climax of Player is also extremely short, which confirms the few, lazy or unstimulated narrative nerves behind the film.

 

Related posts:

 

Tomas Villum Jensen: Sprængfarlig Bombe (2006) - The two Jensens' satire is unrefined but hilarious

Sidste Time (1995) - Hammy, heavy-handed Danish teen horror (actor) 

 

 

Watch a 3-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: 19 mil. DKK, approximately 2.77 mil. $

Box office: 1.3 mil. $

=  Mega-flop (returned 0.46 times its cost)

[Player was released 20 June (Denmark) and runs 90 minutes. Shooting took place in Copenhagen, Denmark and France. The film opened #2 in Denmark, where 96,089 paid admission in total. The film was not released in other markets. Jensen has since left directing alone, only except for 3 TV specials of celebrities playing golf. Christensen returned in Klown Forever (2015); Rasmus Bjerg (Held for Ransom/Ser Du Månen Daniel (2019)) in Gentlemen (2014). 1.2k IMDb users have given Player a 4.7/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of Player?