Britney Spears Breaking Bad Ode to Jesse Pinkman
Put it down to getting too caught up in all the Breaking Bad hype around having only three episodes left in the series, but Britney Spears new song, Work B*tch sounds just like a Breaking Bad ode to Jesse Pinkman. You can just hear Jesse saying the chorus, “Work b*tch!”
*Warning this contains spoilers about the first film, The Hunters*
Directed again by Kjell Sunderland and starring Rolf Lassgård (who reprises his role as Erik Backstrom) and Peter Stormare as his nemesis Torsten a local cop in the Norrbotten area of the first film.
It has been 15 years since the explosive climax of events from the first film. Erik’s brother had a son named Peter (Kim Tjernström) who lives with his mother Karin (Annika Nordin) and her husband Torsten. At the beginning of the film the entire village is out for a hunt. Peter and Torsten are together hunting as a team. Their job is to catch any strays who survive the hunter’s onslaught.
As the hunt is being organised, a young woman covered with blood is running through the forest. She is obviously running for her life. The camera comes up behind her as she is shot. At the hunt, Torsten gets a call from his boss Mats (Johan Paulsen) telling him that they have found the woman’s car and it is apparent that she has been missing for some time.
The hunt is called off when Torsten arrives and finds the car’s trunk (boot) full of blood.
Erik is sent by his superior to go back to the area to help with their investigations. The reasoning is that as he is from that area he is the most logical detective to go. Erik is far from happy as he knows his nephew Peter is there with his mother. Despite his misgivings he has no choice but to go.
When Erik arrives he finds that the local police really “like” a young man named Jari for the young woman’s disappearance. Mainly because Jari is already suspected of having stabbed Torsten as the two men do not get along.
While search parties comb the area for Elin, the missing girl, the police arrest Jari and take him into custody. When Erik first arrives Torsten is friendly and insists that he meet Karin and Peter. Relations between the two men become strained when Erik insists that the local police investigate the allegations against Jari professionally.
As in the first film, Erik has his work cut out for him while he battles his family and the local police. With his every move being blocked, either by Torsten or Karin and Peter, the tension causes Erik to relive the anguish of his brother’s crimes and his death.
Torsten, who appears to be such an upright member of society at the start of the film, begins to show another less favourable side to his personality.
As much as I loved the first film with its xenophobic atmosphere surrounding local villages and their secrets, False Lead increases the tension to an almost unbearable level. The suspense surrounding Elin’s disappearance and murder and Erik’s frustration at having his every move questioned and blocked make the atmosphere uncomfortable at the very least.
The addition of Peter Stormare to the cast was a brilliant move. He is able to match Lassgård in every scene and the battle between the two “alpha males” becomes a clash of wills where you really wonder who is going to win or be proved right.
Despite the fact that Kjell Sunderland did not write this screenplay, his touch is apparent in every scene and every frame of the film. A 15 year break between the first and second film has not lessened Lassgård’s impact as Backstrom and Storemare does what he does best, playing characters that turn out to be very damaged, strange and dangerous.
Backstrom is a dedicated detective who will not stop until he has solved a crime to his satisfaction. Torsten is a control freak and a bully who uses anyone he can to achieve his goals. Jari, the preferred suspect is a societal misfit who could care less what his peers think of him and he is just as much of an alpha male as the other two men.
In some ways this film resembled the old Columbo formula of the audience knowing who the murderer is and waiting impatiently for Backstrom to prove us right. In this instance we don’t really know, but we damned well suspect someone and it sure isn’t Jari. The main difference was that Columbo cleverly used the criminal’s ego against him and it was this that enabled the rain coated cop to catch his “man.”
Backstrom relies on his “gut instinct” and his need to find all the pieces of the puzzle. He will not stop until he gets to the truth and catches his suspect. In a way, he is the ultimate hunter of both films, the first and the second, and this time he is also a tragic figure who is trying to deal with his guilt over his brother’s crime and death.
This is another great film from Sweden and a brilliant sequel; if you can stand watching it with your teeth gritted and your knuckles white from clenching the chairs arms, it will be well worth the discomfort.
I am not sure about the marketing ploy of it being a Nordic noir film, but it is a damned fine mystery thriller and a real 5 star film. It also makes it crystal clear just what a high calibre actor that Rolf Lassgård is.
Directed and co-written by Kjell Sundvall, The Hunters proves that Thomas Wolfe was right; you can’t go home again. Or at least you probably shouldn’t as the main protagonist Erik Backstrom finds when he returns to his hometown of Norrbotten. Erik is a detective from Stockholm where he gained the status of hero after catching a criminal who also shot him.
He returns home to attend his father’s funeral and he tells his brother Leif that he is returning to Norrbotten now that his kids have all grown and left home. He puts in for a transfer to the local police station and as there is a vacancy it is approved. He soon finds that small town police have a very bad habit of turning a blind eye to what they consider “victimless crime.”
In this case the crime is reindeer poaching on a massive scale. No one really cares about the Laplander’s animal’s being slaughtered as they are reimbursed by the government. Erik goes to investigate the latest incident and finds that his new partner is less than eager to pursue the matter. Once they return to the station, he discovers that the killings have been going on for a long time and he starts to realize the size of the problem.
As Erik delves deeper into the poaching problem, the local populace start to turn against him and the group of hunters he suspects include his brother. After a day of fishing one of the group Tomme starts needling Erik and he goes out to Tomme’s truck and confiscates his rifles to see if they are licensed or not.
They are not and the guns are supposed to be destroyed. Unfortunately Erik’s partner is related to Tomme and the guns are given back to him. As the heat on the men increases with each investigative act by Erik, they fall behind in their meat supplies and go out hunting in a bit of a hurry.
They spy a deer while driving through the woods and using the truck they chase it down. Tomme shoots from the moving vehicle and when the men go to find the body, they find that Tomme has shot and killed a Russian blackberry picker by mistake. The men decide to cover up the accidental shooting and things quickly turn murderous.
In The Hunters, Kjell Sunderland tells us that you don’t have to live in the backwoods of America to find rednecks or people who act like creepy “inbred” hillbillies. The feeling you get after meeting the local “boys” in Norrbotten is that they would not be out-of-place in John Boorman‘s Deliverance country or the fictional Cornwall village of Wakely in Sam Peckinpah‘s Strawdogs.
These locals are not friendly if you don’t agree with what they do. Outsiders are treated as second class citizens and they are not above ostracizing people they don’t like. When they were younger Erik moved away while Leif stayed in the village. Their father was a cruel and harsh father who beat Leif often. In a scene early on in the film, Erik says that he always felt guilty about leaving Leif behind and asks if the “old man” beat him often. Leif replies off-handily that the beatings did not hurt him and that he was okay.
The film then goes on to show that Leif is far from okay and as the two brothers begin to argue the cracks of Leif’s “good-old-boy” facade begin to show and we realise that he is in fact a pretty nasty bit of work; someone who flouts the law and is not above shooting his own dog dead for disobedience.
This Swedish film was one of the biggest hits at the box office in 1996. *Courtesy of Wikipedia.* After viewing it, you can see why. The movie has been put together extremely well and the suspense of this tight intricate thriller is almost unbearable at times. It can also be very uncomfortable to watch and not a little frustrating as we see Erik getting more caught up in the action.
As Erik uncovers more evidence that will catch the poachers, more evidence becomes hidden. When he decides to “go public” the entire town and the police department turn against him.
The film captures the small town xenophobic practice of closing in against “outsiders” and the awkwardness of returning to your childhood home and finding that things have changed and discovering that even your family has a few skeletons in the closet. The Hunters feels like a Swedish Strawdogs meets Deliverance with a dash of Walking Tall thrown in.
Spiritually the film belongs in that same sort of genre that so put the average tourist off of visiting rural America’s back roads. In this case though, I do feel like if I ever had the opportunity to visit Sweden, I’d stay on the well beaten track and avoid small villages. I am sure that Sweden is a safe place to visit as long as you don’t go hunting with the locals or wander out to pick blackberries.
Actor Rolf Lassgård plays Erik and he is an excellent actor. Well known in Sweden, he made me think (for some odd reason) of John Goodman. All the actors really sold the film with special kudos going to Jarmo Mäkinen as Tomme and Tomas Norström as the mentally challenged dog breeder Ove. I also fell in love with Helena Bergström as the Prosecuting Attorney and who has actually worked with Rolf before.
Another great “Scandi-crime” film and one well worth the effort involved to track it down. My final verdict is 4 and a half stars.
*Warning: this film contains scenes of animal dismemberment and a lot of blood and literal guts. If you are offended by seeing what appears to be real butchery of animals do not watch the first moments of this film.*
That’s right, Michael J Fox is returning to full time acting after over a decade of doing part-time jaunts on other shows because of his Parkinson’s. He’s going to be doing a show for NBC “based” on his ‘life’ after being diagnosed with the disease.
Michael has gone on record saying that the new drug regimen that he’s currently on has made it possible for him to return to a full 22 show schedule. This must be a glorious moment for him after finding out that he had the disease in 1991. When he was diagnosed it took him a while to come to grips with his situation and to make it known to the public.
Since that time Fox has been campaigning for more public awareness of the disease and for a cure. He has never given up and only stopped full time acting because of the strain and, as he put it, the unfairness to his co-workers.
Fox could almost be considered a national treasure, if he wasn’t Canadian. But be that as it may, he still qualifies to a huge degree, because dammit the guy is likeable, talented and gutsy, all great qualities of any national treasure. He’s written two books (both dealing with his life and his disease),the first one Oh Lucky Man was a best seller and one of mine and my brother’s favourites.
My brother took it as a personal affront when Fox made his announcement about Parkinson’s. As he told me, “I grew up watching Michael on TV in Family Ties, I wanted to be Alex and so did a lot of other kids who watched the show. I was so angry when I heard he’d been struck down with this.”
I didn’t fall into that category, I just loved watching him work. Whether is was on the telly or the big screen, he had that combination of talent, comic timing, delivery…Hell, he had the whole shooting match.
Of course my brother and I weren’t his only fans. Fox has won a lot of awards in recognition of his works. Not least of which was the honorary degree of medicine from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute after he started his own organisation to raise funds and awareness about Parkinson’s in 2010.
So welcome back Michael, although you were never really gone, I can’t wait to see how this new ‘comedy’ program about you and your disease will actually do. I’m sure that more than a few folks are wondering how a show about having Parkinson’s can be funny. Well I’ve seen a show that is a comic/tragedy about dying from Cancer, Parkinson’s has definitely got to be a step up from that.
I mean lets face it, when we are faced with anything that falls into the category of ‘life changing’ it has it’s funny moments. When we are experiencing these moments it is important to find the funny side and more importantly to share it.
Fox is doing just that, he is showing us the funny side of the disease and it’s effects (I am really guessing here as the synopsis of the show that NBC have released is quite ambiguous) on the family around him. More importantly, I think, is the ‘reach’ that this program will have on telling the world about Parkinson’s and its need for a cure.
I think the program will be funny but with ‘a sting in the tail’ at the end of each episode. Probably replicating the reality of what Michael himself went through as the disease continued to change his life.
So come on NBC and Michael J Fox, lets be having you!
Mikes Film Talk 
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