The story of an ex-con is usually the one about whether he’s going to go straight or not, but there’s a lot of ways to tell it. This Norwegian one tells it as a lightly humorous, low-key drama, with the versatile Stellan Skarsgård as the title character. He is a changed—yes, gentler—man after 12 years in prison, and only a few scenes even suggest that the change was a struggle. But his old crime boss tells him they’ve found “him,” and something must be done. Meanwhile, the boss—a big asshole with a mistreated flunky sidekick rather than a Godfather-type crime lord—gets him a place to live, and a job at an auto body place. He tries to reconnect with a son who hasn’t seen him in many years.
There’s a lot to like about the storytelling here, but not a lot of dramatic tension. There’s something too easy about the way the plot all falls into place, like the convenient relationship with the chubby landlady, complete with one of the most comically awkward seduction scenes you’ll have seen. Or the receptionist at the garage says she hates ex-cons so emphatically that it’s obvious she’ll change her mind. The ending is reasonably satisfying. This is Skarsgård’s third collaboration with its director, Hans Peter Moland. The last one was a better English-language film, Aberdeen.
IMDB link
viewed 2/8/11 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 2/9–14/11
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