The Hypnotist/Hypnotisören (2012) - Hallström returns to the fatherland with thriller turkey

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Uncomfortably staring stars with bluish faces make up this poster for Lasse Hallström's The Hypnotist

A basketball trainer and an entire family have been stabbed to death: Only a big lad survives - but in a coma - and a hypnotist attempts to get answers from him.

 

The Hypnotist is written by Paolo Vacirca (Feed (2022)), with co-writer/director Lasse Hallström (En Kille och en Tjej (1975)) contributing story elements, adapted from Lars Kepler's (Stalker (2014)) same-titled 2009 novel.

Completely incompetent as a thriller, The Hypnotist is an assembly line 'Nordic noir' that also rests on a very dubious story. As seen before the Swedish setting has been robbed of almost all color and humor, and instead Mikael Persbrandt (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)) here walks around and looks like a middle-age crisis-hit man with a bad case of hangover, who hypnotizes people. Lena Olin (Vinyl (2016, TV-series)) plays one of the film's snapping, commanding, sour females.

Violent but unexciting, the film has desperately dull relationship scenes, crisis of confidence scenes, crying children and general discouragement, darkness and ugly settings. Suddenly near the end a more dramatic action suspense is erected out on the ice (literally) but it is hopeless. The Hypnotist is a toothache-reminiscent torment of a film.

 

Related post:
 

Lasse Hallström: Chocolat (2000) - Delicious pairing in spite of Hallström's ghastly taste

 

Here is a video from a press conference for the film

 

Cost: 61 mil. SEK, approximately 5.91 mil. $

Box office: 7.1 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.20 times its cost)

[The Hypnotist was released 28 September (Sweden) and runs 122 minutes. Shooting took place from January - March 2012 in Sweden, including in Stockholm, and in Prague, Czech Republic. The film opened #1 to a 974k $ first weekend in Sweden, where it remained for another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#3), grossing 3.8 mil. $ (53.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Denmark with 916k $ (12.9 %) and Spain with 646k $ (9.1 %). The film was only shown at a couple of film festivals in North America. It was chosen as Sweden's Oscar entry of the year but went without nomination. Hallström returned with Safe Haven (2013). Persbrandt returned in Mig Äger Ingen (2013); Tobias Zilliacus (Beck (2018, TV-series)) in 7 TV and short credits prior to his theatrical return in Onnelin ja Annelin talvi (2015); and Olin in Night Train to Lisbon (2013). 8.4k+ IMDb users have given The Hypnotist a 5.6/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of The Hypnotist? 

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020, VOD) - Hilarious Ferrell comeback

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+ Best Comeback of the Year: Will Ferrell + Best Music Movie of the Year

Two united melodious believers adjoin on this poster for Dave Dobkin's Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Lars of Iceland is a middle-aged man living in his publicly shameful father's house. As this arrangement is coming to an end, Lars' dream of going to the Eurovision Song Contest comes to life, performing with his singing partner Sigrit.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is written by Andrew Steele (The Cicada Hunk (2015)) and co-writer/co-producer/co-star Will Ferrell (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)) and directed by Dave Dobkin (52nd St. Serenade (1992)).
Based on the fascinating broadcast phenomenon that is the Eurovision, the world's biggest song contest, which attracts around a couple of hundred million viewers every year, - but is not widely known outside of Europe, - the film has a ball with the outlandish costumes, uncool lyrics and gimmicks that always surround the contestants. The Iceland setting invites more fun, as the Viking-rooted, deeply peaceful and naive residents suddenly have the world's attention, - or at least so they are portrayed here.
Rachel McAdams (The Family Stone (2005)) is funny and does a good impression of the good-natured, comfortable and sweetly naive Scandinavian woman. Will Ferrell (Stranger than Fiction (2006)), who has slumped in countless comedies way under his earlier level in recent years, returns to form here with a very funny performance in a film that is obviously deliberately 'clean' enough for family consumption. (The 'pure' Icelandic protagonists make the absence of foul language and awkward sex scenes auspicious.) Pierce Brosnan (The Disappearance of Kevin Johnson (1996)) is great as Ferrell's hugely disapproving father, an exaggerated type of stock character; their scenes together are among the film's funniest.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, - a title that also matches the awkwardness of the often hilarious Eurovision acts, - also has Dan Stevens (The Guest (2014)) a real delight as the show's popular Russian act, an over-compensating super-macho (but closeted gay) singer of wealth, who tries to lure Sigrit from Lars. Both Stevens and McAdams/Ferrell do quite good accents, and the implicit critique of Russia's anti-gay policies is appreciated much, not least in the (very gay) Eurovision context. The film also has a visiting American quartet of random young tourists, who are effectively set in their place in a few scenes that are also funny because they showcase the rampant anti-Americanism in Europe under President Trump. No doubt much of the inspiration and fun in this film stems from Ferrell's being married to a Swedish woman in real life.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga takes no new ground, and it isn't a nonstop barrage of laughs, but it's a damn good time with a beloved star returning to something with a sweeter edge to it. And then it has songs like Double Trouble, Lion of Love and, yeah, the really memorable: Jaja Ding Dong!

 

Related post:

 

2020 in films - according to Film Excess

 

Watch the Volcano Man music video from the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: None - VOD
= Uncertain
[Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga premiered 26 June (Netflix) and runs 123 minutes. Ferrell was introduced to the Eurovision by his Swedish wife in 1999. He attended the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal to research for the script. Shooting took place in Iceland, the UK, including London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in Tel Aviv, Israel. 3.6 mil. $ were reportedly spent in Iceland, of which 1 mil. $ was the Icelandic government's contribution in the form of a production incentive. The release, which was to coincide with the 2020 Eurovision in May, was pushed out due to the Corona crisis cancelling the song contest. The film became the top-ranked streaming item in the North-American Netflix service as well as in many other markets. The budget and viewership data are regrettably kept secret by Netflix. Dobkin returned with Resident Alien (2020, TV-series) and is slated to return theatrically with Wedding Crashers 2 (announced). Ferrell has 6 upcoming projects, among them a TV-series, currently 5 of them in pre-production and the last one just announced; McAdams returns in Sherlock Holmes 3 (2021). Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is fresh at 63 % with a 5.78/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga?

In a Better World/Hævnen (2010) - Bier's Big Moral Drama lives on its actors' performances

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1 Film Excess nomination:

Best Child Actor: William Jønkh Nielsen, Markus Rygaard (lost to Kiernan Shipka for Mad Men S4)

One of the very dramatic posters for Susanne Bier's In a Better World

The story starts in Southern Funen, Denmark, where a boy gets bullied as 'the rat', until he gets a new friend, who knows how to fight back. In a refugee camp in Africa, the victimized boy's father works as a doctor.

In a Better World is full of moral dilemmas and is an ideal conversations starter, which certainly inspired disagreements among the people I saw it with. All the actors are outstanding, and they are the film's main quality: Trine Dyrholm (Daisy Diamond (2007)), Mikael Persbrandt (One Way (2006)) and Ulrich Thomsen (Banshee (2013-16)), but also the film's two main boy actors, William Jønkh Nielsen (Danny's Doomsday/Dannys Dommedag (2014)) and Markus Rygaard (The Great Bear/Den Kæmpestore Bjørn (2011)).
Unfortunately the script, by Anders Thomas Jensen (The Salvation (2014)) and Danish master co-writer-director Susanne Bier (Brothers/Brødre (2004)), carries the subtext out in its dialog a bit too candidly. The shakiness of the camera, (cinematographer Morten Søborg (Valhalla Rising (2009)), is unnecessary, SPOILER and I also find the ending too neat.
Still, In a Better World is a pretty good film.

Related posts:

Susanne Bier: 2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess
Love Is All You Need/Den Skaldede Frisør (2012) - Bier strikes gold with Italy-set romcom
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]
Brothers/Brødre (2004) or, A Woman Came Between Them

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Approximately 5.5 mil. $ (30 mil. DKK)
Box office: 9.6 mil. $
= Big flop
[In a Better World was released August 26 and runs 118 minutes. Filming took place in and around August 2009 in Funen, Langeland and Kenya. Bier has stated about the film: "Our experiment in this film is about looking at how little it really takes before a child – or an adult – thinks something is deeply unjust. It really doesn't take much, and I find that profoundly interesting. And scary." The film opened #53 to a 33k $ first weekend in 4 theaters, peaking in 51 in North America, where it grossed 1 mil. $ (10.4 % of the total gross). The films 3 biggest markets were its native Denmark, where an impressive 448k paid admission to it, with 4.9 mil. $ (51 %), Sweden with 2.2 mil. $ (22.9 %) and Spain with 1.3 mil. $ (13.5 %). The film won the Best Foreign Film Oscar, beating Incendies, Biutiful, Dogtooth and Outside the Law, and the foreign film Golden Globe as well as the Danish Bodil Best Actress award to Dyrholm. In a Better World is certified fresh at 77 % with a 7.1 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of In a Better World?

Hamilton: In the Interest of the Nation/Hamilton: I Nationens Intresse (2012) - Flawed spy hogwash

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Mikael Persbrandt looks intensely at us in a stately suit on the poster for Katrine Windfeld's Hamilton: In the Interest of the Nation

Hamilton, a deadly spy-weapon of the Swedish state, survives a major arm's deal gone haywire in Uzbekistan and must soon thereafter rescue a Swedish weapon's technician in Africa.

Hamilton is a technically well-oiled adaptation of Swede Jan Guillou's (Coq Rouge - The Story of a Swedish Spy/Coq Rouge (1986)) same-titled 1988 novel, the third of his 13 novels of spy Hamilton. Stefan Thunberg (False Trail/Jägerne 2 (2011)) adapted the novel and Dane Kathrine Windfeld (The Escape/Flugten (2009)), who passed away tragically young earlier this year, directed the film.
The visuals and especially the fight scenes are molded after the Bourne movies (2002; '04; '07; '12), and Hamilton's stunt coordinator Cedric Proust (In the Valley of Elah (2007)) actually worked on the stunts of The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).
But the angle taken on the novel is fundamentally flawed here: Hamilton should have been revived ('he' has been adapted before as Harold Zwart's Commander Hamilton (1998) and the TV-miniseries Hamilton (2001)) as a period film, set in the time it was written for, or left alone. - The world has changed a lot since the books.
The fact SPOILER that Hamilton to a large degree takes place in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and so on, but that the villains are all sinister, cynical Americans are the typically Swedish, politically correct choice. Hamilton is a film that steals American formalism and style in order to make an anti-American, nationalistically Swedish serving of genderless nonsense. A disappointing film.

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch the trailer with English subtitles here

Cost: Estimated 45 mil. SEK. ~ 5.5 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[A lot of the film was shot in Jordan, where it was also screened at the Swedish diplomatic mission. Hamilton became the #1 Swedish movie in Sweden of the year with 512k admissions. - Good but not spectacular: This would only generate around 8 mil. SEK, and so the film can surely be counted as a flop of some kind. 2012 was the biggest cinema-year in Sweden in 25 years in terms of admissions, (18.4 mil. ~ 281 mil. $), but the support for Swedish films shown by the audiences are still way under for instance the neighboring Danish audiences' enthusiasm for Danish films. Hamilton was the only Swedish movie in the top 10, at #6. It was sold to "more than ten foreign markets." The film is the first of a proposed trilogy with Agent Hamilton: But Not If It Concerns Your Daughter/Hamilton: Men Inte Om Det Gäller Din Dotter (2012) being the second film. The third is still not announced and may well never happen. Hamilton doesn't have a Rotten Tomatoes score, but it does have a 6.3 user's average, based on 6.201 clicks on IMDb.]

What do you think of Hamilton: In the Interest of the Nation?
If you've seen the sequel, how does it rate in comparison?

The Salvation (2014) - Classic western yarn meets Danish dynamite

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'Bad Men Will Bleed' is the tagline of the poster for Kristian Levring's The Salvation

Besides some rather ridiculous earlier attempts, the so-called 'potato westerns', Denmark has never made a real western. - Until now.

Danish post-1864 Denmark/Germany war US settler Jon and his brother Peter are finally met by Jon's beautiful, Danish wife and son after 7 years on different continents. But tragedy immediately strikes in the new, dangerous world, and Jon's revenge is swift. But there follows a bloodshed, which forces him to get more entangled in the small town, ripe with cowardice and bubbling oil ...

The solid script and direction is by Kristian Levring (The King Is Alive (2000)) and co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen (The Green Butchers (2003)). The America that is presented here is a uniformly tough place, where greed, cruelty and self-regard reigns, in-line with Danish master filmmaker Lars Von Trier's notoriously America-critical Dogville (2003), (not to speak of follow-up Manderlay (2005) and his musical Dancer in the Dark (2000)), and in this strict focus The Salvation loses a central color of the western, that of the good American. But this is truly an outsider western, more accurately a Euro-western shot in South Africa! It is like a spaghetti western-inspired horse opera, shot digitally and stylistically infused with Sin City (2005) affinity.
Salvation is visually impressive, with cool cinematography by Jens Schlosser (The One and Only/Den Eneste Ene (1999)). From the dusty railroad beginning and the following, exciting stage coach scenes, we see classic, well-made western settings. And later the cindered town of the film's gang leader tyrant Delarue is brought to good use as an atmospheric setting more than once. The style is that of a digitally heightened reality, fresh, sharp, simple and handsomely achieved.
Complicating the story, - and making for a richer experience, - are some rich secondary characters; Delarue's mute woman played intensely by Eva Green (White Bird in a Blizzard (2014)); Jon's sympathetic, helpful brother Peter played by Mikael Persbrandt (In a Better World (2010)), who seems to be a bit preoccupied with getting his Swedish tongue to sound alternately Danish and Danish-American; and the town's 'yellow' mayor/undertaker, played beautifully by Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)). The Salvation's exciting cast also includes former Manchester United soccer star Eric Cantona as our heavy's right hand man, and Danish popstar Nanna Øland Fabricius, - better known as Oh Land, - who plays Jon's ill-fated wife. Lastly, Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Possession (2012)) is good as the self-righteous Delarue. - He liked the movie so much, he's had a tattoo made on his arm of his character's favorite weapon in it!
I sort-of understand, because Salvation is a solid good western. The tale is arch-typical and has been done before, yet it still it seems fresh; the Danish settler angle and music (by Kasper Winding (Me and Charly/Mig og Charly (1978)) is different, as is some of the visuals. Though it's shot in South Africa, it looks like the American West. The production is good, and the pacing modern yet graceful.
If you are a western-lover, this may very well be your favorite movie this year, however unlikely, it is a Danish western. Rough, violent, with some dark humor and a strong hero in Mads Mikkelsen's (The Hunt (2012)) Jon, who tries to avoid conflict for as long as he can, and is different than any American western hero I can recall, if only because of his look and heritage.
SPOILER The title seems to refer to Mikkelsen and Green's outsider renegade characters finding each other and forging a new alliance in their young adopted country (America), which the ending implies will strengthen its people's moral hollowness in extreme wealth (arriving in the form of oil.) - Go see this one!

Mads Mikkelsen as Jon in Kristian Levring's The Salvation

Mads Mikkelsen, co-writer/director Kristian Levring and Eva Green on the set of The Salvation

Budget: 10.5 mil. euros
Box office: Not known yet
= Still unknown

What do you think of The Salvation?
Any recent western/s that you want to recommend?