Jesper Engsted

Kongekabale has received rave reviews in all of the Danish newspapers and apparently, this is the prime achievement of the Danish film industry in the last couple of years. However, in my opinion, the film has several flaws, which makes it mediocre at best.

The biggest flaw is, like it said in another review on this page, that we don't really care about the characters. This is because of the fact, that the characters are not fully explored, but are rather used as plot devices. Furthermore, they are all stereotypes. The two journalist are virtually copies of Woodward and Bernstein ("All the President's men"), with one of them being a naive idealistic rookie journalist, and the other an experienced journalist who is fully aware of how rotten the system is. The spin doctor is also a stereotype with his slick appearance and behavior.

The worst character, however, is "the bad guy" played by Søren Pilmark. I have never seen a character who is so purely evil as he is. Not once in the film do we see any sign of a redeeming feature. He wants to become the prime minister at any price. We never believe in him as a realistic character, because he is so one-sided.

The script writer, the director and the actors have stated that this is a realistic view into the world of Danish politics. I find it difficult to believe that the Danish parliament is a place of greed and corruption of such gigantic Machiavellian proportions as this film claims. Even Oliver Stone who is considered by many to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist has a lot more nuances in his films, which makes the characters more believable. Unfortunately, this "golden age" of Danish cinema is characterized by black and white characters and stereotypes rather than originality and realism.

I was looking for the plot in this movie, but it seems to have either disappeared or be hiding very well or just maybe never have existed. The movie is just a mix of strange occurrences and although you could argue that there are some stories like Royal's attempt to get redemption, you never really care about the story because the characters are so superficial. That is the biggest flaw in this movie. The characters are caricatures and most of them are selfish and anti-social. So why watch this movie? I guess there are a few mildly funny moments (like three or so), and it is very beautifully shot. I especially like the camera movement, which is very dynamic and gives a smooth feel to the movie. Instead of cutting back and forth Anderson often uses pans, which works well. Like in on of the final scenes, where he pans slowly across the fire truck and registers all the different reactions to the crash. Also his use of music is quite good (I love Ruby Tuesday). But what is form without substance? The thin plot and the superficial characters turn this movie into just another failed attempt of making a clever movie. The end result is just a tiny bit better than the absolutely terrible "Rushmore".

The creators of this movie must have sat down one day and said "let's make fun of the Russians and at the same time show people how advanced we (Americans) are". The movie portrays the Russians as an inferior people who are unable to understand the brilliant ideas put forward by the Americans. It is true that American campaigns are probably more professional and more based on expensive studies than campaigns in any other countries are. However, this movie goes to far and it exaggerates the differences between East and West. To me it looked like a propaganda movie made during the Cold War.

This movie was recommended to me by a friend and before watching it I noticed that it was rated quite highly by IMDB users considering it's a comedy. I therefore had very high expectations to the movie. As the movie progressed, however, I became more and more puzzled as to why so many people like this movie. I just found it terrible in every way. First of all it is never really funny. Furthermore, the protagonist is just a hideous person often showing psychopathic behaviour. People don't behave realistically. Why do Bill Murray's character and the teacher show so much respect for this the protagonist who obviously never cares for anybody but himself? Please help me. List the qualities of this film. Because I really can't find any.

The film is original because of its structure, which is created by two elements. The lead character, Sam is a script writer and the film goes back and forth between him writing a script and the enactment of this script. This makes the audience aware of the dialogue, which is good and realistic. As the film progresses Sam becomes more and more convinced that his wife is having an affair, and though this is entertaining at times it is also irritating to watch. It becomes difficult to identify with Sam because of his increasingly irrational behavior. All in all, the film is saved by its originality and by Tommy Kenter and Marika Lagercrantz who do a very convincing job as the two main characters.

It is beyond me why two million Danish people each week sit down to watch this terrible show. The dialogue is terrible and not realistic. The characters are hollow and simplistic. There's a tough man, a tough woman and a sensitive man. The writers actually say that they have modeled the characters after Greek mythology! Give me a break! All the characters are of course brilliant policemen. When I have watched this show I have longed for "District Hill Street" and "NYPD Blue". These are brilliant shows, and "Rejseholdet" is a lousy copy. This program is a symptom of the disease Danish television is currently suffering from.