Too many fans seem to be blown away

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

The film industry suffers from a lot of problems - weak scripts, small pool of talent hogging everything and a claustrophobic, incestuous climate of recycled films/actors/ideas. There's the obligatory film about the war with Russia, a whole bunch of wannabe Hollywood filmmakers that should stick to music videos and nothing of real quality worth noting.When asked "Is there a good Finnish film to watch?" I would just say "no, not really." I'm not being unpatriotic, but you should just watch things that are good. Watching things out of patriotism is akin to charity.This film is actually good. I would give it 6.7, but IMDb does not have fractions, so I rounded it up to seven, which is quite generous.There are problems with this film that stem from a slightly immature/amateur production.Music has little to play in this film. Film is not theater and we don't live in the silent film era, but some films give so little consideration to audio which is, in my opinion, half the film. There's no powerful score, no soundtrack to help the story, nothing. Scenes with Nazis could've had metal, punk or something. Scenes with refugees could've had some music. Show this contrast of cultures.Real-life Neo-Nazis make a bigger deal about music they don't like than other minor grievances (not just them, innocent kids in the car complain about music because music is powerful and if you don't like it, it's really annoying).The cinematography was okay. They just filmed it as it is. There's no interesting camera movement, angles, framing, blocking. The camera just filmed what was there and that's it.The casting is great. The acting is great.Locations - meh. There was nothing special.Pacing was a bit heavy. The story didn't have a great flow to it. Editing too. Things just happen one after the other, sometimes you're not sure if this is the same minute, day or week. Dialogue was okay. The script showed some weakness.It's a good film overall and a step in the right direction for the industry as a whole.I'm going to state this explicitly so that no one learns the wrong lesson: The reason why this film is good is because it's original (not a ripoff of some American film) and it's entertaining. This does not mean "People liked this film, let's make it 15 more times" or "let's make more films about Neo-Nazis, people love that topic." Nopes, sorry. I liked the first one, this one. Think of something new next time. I'm not interested in any more stories about Neo-Nazis, or step-father-step-child bonding or something of the sort.If you cook a good dish and your spouse says "Wow, you're a good cook" - that doesn't mean "hmm. S/he likes spaghetti. I'm gonna make that for him/her every day for 40 years!"SPOILERThe idea that the boy's father would leave his son alone with two skinheads that play pranks with grenades is laughable. People don't leave their kids with a random stranger to begin with. Two random strangers? Two random skinhead strangers? Two random skinhead strangers who play jokes with grenades? I can't fault the actors. This is amateur scriptwriting.

a film about small things. far by ambitions, almost unrealistic, scene for old fashion values and form a form of revelation who is not easy to convince. but a courageous film. for the absence of high ambition. for to not pretend be a moral lesson. only picture of few decisions and choices. it is an impressive film for its profound modesty. honest, amusing, using vulnerabilities and fears in a manner who except the heroism in common sense. a film about love who could be only result of acceptance. a film who surprise because it is clear, seems be slice of every day life, not propose a model only present the way of a man to himself. short, a film easy to criticize it. but that could be its fundamental virtue.

I can't comment on movies from Finnland in general or if there have been better ones in recent past than this one. But I can tell you, that this one is pretty damn good. And hopefully you're not offended by the "d"-word, because there's much worse coming your way in this movie. And while most of it could be viewed as borderline cliché and predictable as to were it is heading, the movie itself is able to not only get away with it, but be mesmerizing nonetheless.It's the central performances (which includes the kid) and also the sensibility with which the movie is handled by everyone involved. Unfortunately stuff like this happens in real life too and it's not just fiction. Is there hope though? For the character(s) involved and for us in general?

This movie is so hard to watch, because it is so detached from reality even though it tries to portray itself as a serious movie. This review might have minor spoilers. It is the ultimate political correct movie and try to nationalistic conservatives as the ultimate losers and of course maturity makes you become a liberal.There a gang of "patriots" who are complete dumbnuts with s*it for brains who of course try to make up excuses to attack poor foreign men, who never could do any harm. The protagonist falls in love with a woman who has a black child. The black kid is a poor victim of racist attack by racist Finnish kids who bully him and makes his "new patriot father" seem like a racist which escalates to almost fatal consequences.The 'patriots' of course would never accept a half-black child and he could never show it to them and does his best to hide it from them. The black kid also gets into trouble because of standing up for himself against bullies in school and this leads into our protagonist also getting trouble with the teachers and other parents in school.The movie is indeed quite interesting, but it is the ultimate movie in brainwashing and therefore would not recommend it to younger audience who probably could not see the blatant political ideology it is forcing down your throat. It portrays Finns with patriotic views as completely dumb-nuts and of course most of our characters (i.e school mates and teachers) are of course also very racist and therefore against his son. The main teaching of this movie is to better become a liberal, since if you uphold the view that Europe are for Europeans you would probably be best of killing yourself!