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Surface Tension

Gus Van Sant's latest film is a mood with no story.

By Leo Charney

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Oct. 26, 2005

Includes: Commentary track, book reading, theatrical trailer.
You'll Like It If You Like: Gregg Araki movies, coming-of-age melodramas, sexual abuse stories.

Old Men in New Cars

If you think all Danish movies are artsy Dogme 95 dramas, check out this comic gangster film, which is like funnier Tarantino or a wacky spin on an Asian action flick. It's a wild ride with the one-thing-then-another logic of a slapstick farce and the screwy energy of Reservoir Dogs or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Just out of prison, burly Harald finds Munken, his father figure, dying in a hospital. Munk wants to make contact with his long-lost son Ludvig, who turns out to be in a maximum security prison. Oh, and he needs an expensive liver transplant too. The gangsters resourcefully hurdle every obstacle, no matter how outlandish, leaving a trail of chaos and mayhem in their wake. A prequel to the 1999 Danish hit In China They Eat Dogs, the movie was written by Danish prodigy Anders Thomas Jensen, who also wrote the great melodrama Brothers and Dogme 95 movies Mifune's Last Song and The King Is Alive, and won an Oscar for his short film Election Night. This isn't a classic, but it's a lot more fun and entertaining than another Lars von Trier "why I hate America" diatribe. B

You'll Like It If You Like: Comic action movies, Danish cinema, Tarantino films.

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