the audience applauded

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

I don't expect my comment to be useful to anyone. I only say that this thriller from Sweden is of course effective, sharp, very well made, but not a real film noir for me. It is too much in the American way, with the good guys and the bad guys scheme, which I hate, unless the face to face between the evil and the lead is interesting. Here, the bad guy, the heavy, is pretty interesting and the very end exciting too. But that doesn't "save" the film for me. I repeat, too "American", to be a crime flick as I love. Too much predictable. But, I repeat, the directing is perfect, as was the director's previous film, NOOS TOLERANS, and probably is his next and other movies. No doubt. The Scandinavian film industry should have its trade mark, although this one is very professional, and not copy Hollywood. And I speak about the stories put on screen, not about the acting or directing. Only stories, screenplays.

I could go on for hours about all the things that stink about this movie, but just to be brief: - countless plot holes and illogical actions (e.g. the "professional bodyguards" leaves the country home of their client virtually unattended with THE GATES OPEN for the bad guys to simply drive through...) - The acting. Oh My God. Over-acting on some parts, while Eklund (as usual) looks like a tired Labrador and switches back and forth between his two only expressions: confused and confusedly smiling. - The dialogue. Jeez. How many clichés can you stuff into one script?I don't know why, but for some reason mediocre or downright awful action movies receive high grades if they're in Swedish, while no one would bother if they had been made in the USA. The Swedish film industry seems obsessed with making bad versions of American B-films. The horror. The horror.

This is a standard action movie, fairly well kept together, and probably good fun for most people. However, the plot has a fundamental flaw. If you are a nice swedish capitalist (Fröler), family and all, trying to establish your business in Latvia(?), what do you do if you get blackmailed? You might try to get help from a silver-haired, ex-STASI agent (Ohrt) carrying a laptop. You might also think it is worth to give up 20% of your profit in Latvia to this former STASI officer in order to get peace and quiet. The STASI-professional then kills all of the blackmailers in 30 seconds! How do you reason then? "Oh, how horrible, I must immediately leave Latvia and try to get away from my agreement with this dangerous STASI-man"? Not very likely, you can't be that stupid and at the same time a businessman. It's simply impossible.4/10 but could be a 6/10 with a slightly smarter businessman.

Part of writing a manuscript is about creating realistic dialogue. In Livvakterna this is handled with a new, daring exercise: Let the star meet all questions with silence. Somehow though, you could consider it realistic. I mean, after all the star is a psycho cop who don't attend former girlfriends funerals, who loves police work more than family life, who quits police work by just sending a mail and have more guts fighting lawyers than criminals. He loses himself in a bodyguards vs bodyguards drama and move into the woods. There will not be another sequel to Noll Tolerans-Livvakterna. Therefore I'm thankful and gave it an 8.