Review: Kongekabale / King's Game (2004)

Eleven days before a Danish general election, the opposition Centre Party is riding high in the polls. Then, the unexpected happens: their leader is hospitalized due to an accident. Deputy leader, Lone Kjeldsen (Nastja Arcel) makes a tilt for the leadership. When journalist Ulrik Torp (Anders W. Berthelsen), recently appointed to the parliamentary news desk, starts getting wind of a possible fraud committed by Lone's husband, Mads (Lars Brygmann), he wonders he's a pawn in a party coup. Could it be organized by the shadow finance minister Erik Dreier Jenssen (Søren Pilmark) and his press secretary Peter Schou (Lars Mikkelsen)?

This film criticizes the media's cosy relationship with political parties and government, where the press is all too willing to participate in spin rather than to discover the truth. However, it's not subtle in presenting this point of view: Ulrik seems much too idealistic and naïve to have lasted long in journalism, Lone is too ineffectual to be the deputy of a political party and Dreier just radiates animosity. Also, Nicolas Bro, as free-lance journalist Henrik Moll, gives Ulrik an unexpected lecture on the problems of the modern media.

After getting that message off their chests, writer Rasmus Heisterberg and co-writer and director Nikolaj Arcel pick up the pace, making the second half of the film a more involving thriller.

Moderately good thriller, though a little too contrived and earnest at the start.

Danish with English subtitles.

3 out of 5 stars.

Review was originally published in Morva House.

Review: A/R andata+ritorno / Round Trip (2004)

Just before Christmas, Dante (Libero De Rienzo), a bicycle courier, decides to leave Turin to escape his dingy flat and the 20 000 Euros he owes to local gangster Skorpio (Michele Di Maurio). At the same time, flight stewardess Nina's (Vanessa Incontrada) relationship with her boyfriend is on shaky ground. When she becomes stranded in Turin due to a general strike and is unable to find a hotel room, Dante's mentor, the kindly Tolstoj (Kabir Bedi), offers her Dante's vacant room. As she pieces together Dante through his notes and books, she falls in love with him.

This film teases the audience by keeping the potential lovers apart for as long as possible. Then having brought them together, poses the question of how will they stay together given, in this case, Dante's immediate and fatal debt problem? Writer-director Marco Ponti solves it by introducing a heist element into the final third of the film.

A genial and light-hearted film. Remember to stay around for the scenes inserted in the trailing credits.

Italian with English subtitles

3 out of 5 stars.

Review was originally published in Morva House.

Review: Nicotina (2003)

Characters whose paths intersect in one busy night in a Mexican city: Nene (Lucas Crespi) and his partner, Tomson (Jesús Ochoa) hire computer cracker Nolo (Diego Luna) to get bank passwords for Russian gangster Svoboda (Norman Sotolongo). While on the job, Nolo spys on his pretty neighbour Andrea (Marta Beláustegui), a concert musician who is having an affair with her conductor and also her upstairs neighbour. We also meet two bickering couples, barber Goyo (Rafael Inclan) and his wife Carmen (Rosa María Bianchi), and chemist Carlos (Eugenio Montessoro) and his wife Clara (Carmen Madrid).

The story plays out roughly in real time as we watch the characters lurch from one crisis to another. The initial scenes of Nolo and his neighbour run too long and don't go anywhere other than to set up the rest of the story. Oddly enough, while everyone argues about smoking or discuss life and smoking, nicotine has very little impact on the story.

The digital cinematography is plain and realistic but rather hard on the eye. Split screen and computer graphics are used in some scenes for additional effect.

Middling black crime-comedy.

Mexican with English subtitles.

3 out of 5 stars.

Review was originally published in Morva House.