Mads Mikkelsen: on ice in Joe Penna's endurance test, ARCTIC, and prone to more cold weather and murder in Jonas Åkerlund's ugly, envelope-pushing POLAR

Mads Mikkelsen is one of TrustMovies' favorite living actors. We'll watch him in just about anything, and now, after his two current endeavors, we feel that we have. ARCTIC, the better -- if still pretty tiresome to sit through (unless you're a glutton for punishment) -- of the two films finds the actor stranded in that titular locale after a plane crash. Except for its frozen wasteland, the film has oodles in common with the earlier survival-at-sea movie, All Is Lost, which was infinitely easier to sit through because there was so much more going on and we learned more about the film's single character than we ever do here.

As directed and co-written (with Ryan Morrison, who also edited the movie) by Joe Penna (shown at right), what's mostly going on in Arctic is a lot of trekking and trudging across frozen vast white spaces, as our hero hopes to be rescued or reach some kind of civilization.

That's it, plot-wise. To even begin to describe the very few "incidents" that try to enliven that plot would be to give away the minor spoilers the film offers. Best to concentrate on Mr. Mikkelsen, below, who proves, as usual, quite watchable.

The character he plays, Overgård (we know this only from the name on the jacket the man wears), is clearly highly intelligent and resourceful -- de rigueur for this kind of film -- which of course will help him in his quest/journey. Yet the most interesting thing we note about Overgård is his his concern and caring for life -- in whatever form it takes. This is clear early on, as he catches a fish, and later come to further fruition via his treatment of one of the only two other humans we (vaguely) meet in this movie.

If you are a fan of lone survivor movies -- and not those of the horror/thriller/slasher sort -- Arctic may be quite to your taste. I found it slow going, with a finale (spoiler just ahead) that, while welcome on one level, utterly disappoints on another, via its obvious nod to the necessities of feel-good, commercial cinema. Overall, while I admired things about the film, I didn't actually enjoy it much.

From Bleecker Street and running 98 minutes, Arctic opened February 1 on the coasts and will hit South Florida tomorrow, Friday, February 22. In Miami, it will play the AMC's Sunset Place 24 and Aventura 24 and Regal's South Beach 18, in Fort Lauderdale at The Classic Gateway, in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood, in Boynton Beach at the Cinemark, in West Palm Beach at the AMC City Place 20 and Cobb's Downtown at the Mall 16 in Palm Beach Gardens, and in Jupiter at the Cineopolis. Wherever you may live around the USA, click here to find your nearest theater(s).

We get to see lots more of Mr. Mikkelsen in POLAR, the junky, envelope-pushing, let's-out-Tarantino-little-Quentin movie directed by Jonas Åkerlund (shown below), with a  screenplay by Jayson Rothwell, from the graphic novel by Victor Santos.

In the film, Mikkelsen plays Duncan Visla, the world's best assassin-for-hire (a profession that is not exactly "heroic," right?) who, when retirement time comes, is betrayed by his "boss" so that said boss can have what ought to have been Visla's multi-million-dollar retirement bonus.

The boss (played by an over-the-top Matt Lucas, below), by the way, is doing this to all his retirement-age assassins. Perhaps an assassins' union is in order? In any case, this nasty guy has sent out his supposedly best set of young assassins to murder the old ones. But in trying to reach their prey, these "kids" decide to murder a whole bevy of those whom they find "in between."

While watching this increasingly florid crock of shit you can't help wondering: Did the filmmakers somehow imagine that because they've dressed their kids in cutesy costumes and chosen perhaps the weirdest set of victims so far seen -- the most horrible is the character who seems to have stumbled from My 600-Pound Life into his or her (not sure which) 600-Pound Death.

This is envelope-pushing, all right, and it stinks of near complete inhumanity and sleaze. Ooooooh: Let's laugh while we watch these folk being "creatively" murdered. It's not dark, it's dreck. Ah, but there is that attempt at humanity provided by our Duncan's near-constant flashing back to a murder episode that he clearly regrets. Oh, so sad.

In the supporting cast is Vanessa Hudgens as the sweet but clearly unhappy neighbor who lives across from Duncan's hide-out home. Hudgens, above, right, with Mikkelsen, is very good (compare this performance with that of her Maureen in the recent Rent: Live on TV), and so, I suppose, are many others in the large cast. But to what avail?

Mikkelsen himself (above, further above, and torso-wise below) seen mostly in black eye-patch, is reliable as always, and in this film, unlike Arctic, we get to see much more of him -- killing, cracking-wise, fucking in the nude, and so forth. At age 53 he still looks fabulous and seems to grow more versatile, acting-wise, with each new year. He even executive produced this film (he must have been impressed by the success of his envelope-pushing Hannibal TV series). But again, to what avail?

Streaming now via Netflix, Polar runs just under two full hours. The film's finale actually proved a nice surprise (to me, at least; you might have guessed the connection) that even made good sense. But, boy, how I wished there had been a decent movie in front of that interesting ending.

DVD/Blu-ray Debut: Mads Mikkelsen in Kristian Levring's THE SALVATION

Revenge is sour, nasty and jumps back and forth between a couple of agrieved parties in THE SALVATION, the latest movie from Danish director Kristian Levring. One of those parties is a real shitheel of a man, however, so there's certainly no contest regarding for whom you're gonna root. Which also makes for little irony or surprise along the way. This is a kind of High Noon for folk who like a lot of violence and killing, a little sex, and a cast far too good for what's up there on screen. (What's up there actually looks quite good -- in Blu-ray, at least: crack cinematography, editing, sound design, and all the other technical specs.)

Almost any movie starring Mads Mikkelsen is worth a watch, and The Salvation is no exception. There's a lot to like here but litttle to love, as we've seen it all before, though the plot on parade has been cobbled together pretty well (the screenplay is by Levring and Anders Thomas Jensen) and is acted even better by a first-rate cast that includes Eva Green as a mute, mysterious good-time gal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as that very naughty bad guy.

After awhile, however, you can easily tell who'll go down and who'll survive. So all the violence and killing, while necessary plot-wise, begins to take its toll on your patience. From IFC Films and running just 92 minutes, the movie hits DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, August 4, for sale and/or rental.

THE HUNT: Thomas Vinterberg's -- and one of the year's -- best & most unsettling films

Pedophilia is such a hot-button topic that few narrative films tend to go there. Documentaries do, particularly when the abuser is connected with The Catholic Church, an organization more than worthy of ridicule and disdain. The subject is most often used as the cheap hook for sex-and-violence television and/or cable fare. This is one reason, of many, that the new Danish film THE HUNT (Jagten) is so worthy of your time and attention.

In it, a little girl (an exactly-right performance from Annika Wedderkopp, above, right)-- exposed to a provocative sexual visual by one of her older brother's adolescent friends around the same time as she experiences a rebuff from a much-beloved teacher and friend -- puts two and two together and gets 22. She doesn't lie, exactly, but she deliberately connects things that were heretofore unconnected, and when all hell breaks loose from her original comment, she is practically forced by almost all the adults around her to stick by her "story" and in fact elaborate on it.

How this plays out in The Hunt may bring to the minds of many of us Americans the infamous McMartin case from the 1980s -- a near model of what not to do in investigating supposed sexual abuse -- not to mention the more recent documentary Capturing the Friedmans that investigates similar territory. The former case was shown to be concocted out of the loony-tune minds of sex-hysterics; the latter unfortunately, despite strong evidence of poorly-handled investigation by the prosecution, continues to mine its injustices.

The film begins with what looks like the Danish version of a Polar Bear Club late-fall swim (two photos above), and then we hop from the water to home, school and all around town, noting the charm and easy camaraderie of this seemingly tight little community -- which proves just as tight in its hatred for and closing out of the would-be pedophile, once the rumor begins to spread. Nothing in this story is particularly new, I grant you, but its telling could hardly be better in terms of pulling us into the fast-crumbling life of its protagonist, played by the brilliantly empathic and versatile actor Mads Mikkelsen (above).

We see example after example of former friends and associates turn away from this innocent man, and as awful as this is to witness, it is also quite believable, for as one of the accusers states, "Children don't lie." Of course they do, but this is another of mankind's fondest hypocrisies, and it's one that is especially difficult to sink. I am trying to think of another film that places us this thoroughly under the skin of an accused innocent, but nothing comes to mind.

You will hate the rotten townspeople on view, even as you cannot help but wonder if you would be doing the same thing under similar circumstances. You'll feel disgust at the way all this is handled -- by the school, the authorities, the parents. And yet how often, you'll wonder, does something very nearly the same happen?

As directed and co-written (with Tobias Lindholm) by Thomas Vinterberg (shown at left, of Submarino and The Celebration), the movie looks smashing, as well. The photography (by Charlotte Bruus Christensen) is alternately gorgeous and colorful, dark and drained, and the writing is so very much better than that of A Hijacking (another recent Lindholm film). Directorially, the movie is the most polished of Vinterberg's career.

The ability to make viewers' blood boil -- and yet allow them to understand precisely how and why this must occur -- is no simple task, and Vinterberg deserves high praise for achieving this so well. He's clearly on the side of our hero but he also understands the townspeople's fear and anger, and even better, he lets us into the mind and feelings of the young girl in question.

Part thriller, part character study, part moral-quandary movie, The Hunt works on every level. And its unsettling ending seems to me just right in a number of ways. Off-balance is how we live now.

The movie, from Magnolia Pictures and running a fast-paced 111 minutes, opens today, Friday, July 12, in New York (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Angelika Film Center) and in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7). In the weeks (and months) to come, the film will open all around the country. To see all currently scheduled playdates, click here.

Mads Mikkelsen stars in Nicolas Winding Refn's VALHALLA RISING

A minimalist movie sporting maximum violence, VALHALLA RISING, is the latest from Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (below), who last year gave us the charmingly oddball and also very violent Bronson. The setting here is Europe in the... well, it looked to me like the 12th or 13th or maybe 14th century.  We know it's A.D. because there's some nasty Christian vs Pagan stuff going on.  (Don't expect the intelligence of Agora, however; this is all just a good excuse for various bouts of to-the-death fighting.)

Initially we're treated to some introductory twaddle (you might call it a portentous pronouncement) and then -- yea! -- the first fight.  This looks to be between two unfairly bound slaves to see which man can come out alive. Don't expect the Colosseum, however. This is low-budget stuff: two guys in a dirt circle observed by a few onlookers. Since one of the two is our star, the always dead-on Mads Mikkelsen (below, tattooed and shirtless), we kind of know who the winner will be. Mr. Mikklesen, who played a villain with a bleeding eye in Casino Royale, here plays a hero with one eye scarred shut.  Which matters not a bit.  Lean, muscular, mute and possessed with strong native intelligence, One Eye (as the IMDB cast list calls him) is sumpin' else.

Killing pretty much everyone around him, except a young boy (Maarten Stevenson, below left) who has provided him a bit of sustenance, One Eye and his new pal go on a journey that has them meeting up with some guys who are supposed to be Norseman but sound like they're from Scotland (the language of the film is English, and the actors are, I guess, just using their native tongue).  More fights ensue, the men take to the sea, the wind stops, blame descends upon our poor pair (they're pagan, dontcha know) but then those winds start up again and whoosh, we've landed in what looks very much like pre-Christopher Columbus America. And where is Terrence Malick when you need him?

Valhalla Rising is a film of mammoth physicality but very low intelligence. Whatever you may have thought about Bronson, at least that movie moved.  This one's pace is slow, slower, slowest. In addition to this, Mr Winding Refn is fond of slow-motion effects. Using slo-mo atop slow pacing is simply nuts. Bring a safety pin, undo it periodically, and give yourself a jab to stay awake.

Still, there is Mr. Mikkelsen and is he's a wonder to behold.  In the past couple of years, we've seen him in roles as diverse as those of  the do-gooder in After the Wedding, villain in Casino Royale, troub-
led war hero in Flame and Citron,  his co-title role in Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, and this little number.  As an angry warrior in the recent Clash of the Titans remake, he alone in the cast of macho males managed to bring some gravitas to the proceedings. ("Clash," by the way, is a much more entertaining movie than most of my compatriots let on: So much fun in fact, that I think I'll have to devote a post to it around the time of its DVD release).

After all this, and the wonderful stuff he's done previously (see Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself or Adam's Apples or Torremolinos 73  for further proof), it's clear that Mad's the man: a go-to guy for just about any role you can think up.  And he's really the only reason to visit Valhalla.  This movie, full of gorgeous visuals (below) that were probably done at 1/100 the budget of most Hollywood sagas, defines "pretentious." It has almost nothing to say, except the most obvious, about any of the subjects it covers -- religion, bonding, fighting, exploration, solitude.  At 93 minutes, it feels like twice that length yet offers enough actual content to fill only half
its running time.

Valhalla Rising, from IFC Films, opens Friday, July 16,  in theaters and via IFC On-Demand.

Coco again -- this time with Igor and directed by a Dutchman

From the kaleidoscopic credits sequence -- gorgeous but approaching the headache-inducing -- it's clear that we're in for some visual splendor. And Netherlands-
born adapter (of Chris Greenhalgh's novel) and director Jan Kounen (shown just below) certainly delivers on that promise: COCO CHANEL AND IGOR STRAVINSKY is perhaps the most beautiful film of the year -- maybe several -- in terms of art direction, costumes and sets (including wallpaper and props). TrustMovies is not being facetious: There is a lot be said for sheer beauty and taste regarding surroundings, particularly when all this is captured as stunningly as it is here (the widescreen cinematography is by David Ungaro).

If this were all the movie had to offer, it would still be enough for me to spend a couple of hours in its company and then watch it again eventually via DVD (and on Blu-Ray, one hopes).  But there's actually a good deal more.  Coco & Igor (let's reduce that title a bit) provides smart entertainment in a number of ways, while making a fine companion piece to the Anne Fontaine version, Coco Before Chanel, which we saw last year, and which gave us Coco's childhood & early adult years.

Kounen's movie begins almost where Fontaine's ends (if you leave out that fashion-show finale) -- with a sexual tryst between Chanel (the lovely Anna Mouglalis -- above, center -- who, despite her beauty, looks even more like the actual Chanel than did Audrey Tautou) and "Boy Capel," once the latter has set her up in business, and immediately prior to his auto accident. Capel is played by Anatole Taubman, whom we see little of  but enough to know that the actor is a similar physical type to Mads Mikkelsen (who plays Igor), indicating that Coco has a preference for lean, dark, pale-skinned men.  Then, off goes Chanel to the premiere of  Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

For my entire life since early adolescence I have heard about this legendary performance, always thinking, "What?!  It caused a riot in the theater?  What could that have been like?"  Well, now we know -- because Kounen and his crew bring it (see above and below) to wonderful, in-the-moment life: the music, the dance (Nijinsky and Diaghilev!), the audience, its response, the whole shebang. This provides the film with its dont'-miss first 20 minutes.

Once the Coco/Igor romance gets started, the movie hits a number of other high notes, too.  Interestingly, there is surprisingly little dialog throughout. In fact, this may be the first big-budget movie I've seen with so little verbiage to accompany its visuals. (A compatriot suggested to me that the director may not be so fluent in English -- which is the major language here -- and, though both can speak it, neither of its two stars might be that conversant in its subtleties.)  Consequently the movie is practically all situation -- activity and visuals -- as though this would be enough to ensure its success.  It is.

There are a few choice verbal moments here: When Igor and family arrive, invited, at Chanel's estate and have a look around to discover that practically everything is black-and-white (see above), "You don't like color, Mademoiselle Chanel? asks Madame Stravinsky. "As long as it's black," Coco replies.  Along the way, between bouts of sex and remorse, we get to know Igor's wife Katia (played by the fine Elena Morozova), are privy to the creation of a certain now-famous perfume, and see Stravinsky labor to improve his "Rite."

By the finale, which of course is expected, we're left with an age-old rule that strikes me, at least, as quite similar to the one my high school and college gym coaches kept trying to get us guys -- who were understandably reluctant -- to live by: You're going to play the sport (or, in this case, compose the music) much better if you'll just abstain from sex until after the game (in this case, the performance).  After her initial seduction, Mouglalis makes a surprising, if effective, coach (this woman's in love with "control") and Mikkelsen her reluctant, frustrated player.  Her ploy works.
So does the movie.

Distributed in the U.S. via the indispensable Sony Pictures Classics, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinksy opens Friday, June 11, in NYC (at the Paris and Angelika) and in Los Angeles (at the Royal).  Further release dates, cities and theaters can be found here.