Review

In Lasse Spang Olsen’s follow-up/prequel to In China They Eat Dogs, we find grumpy restaurateur and part-time criminal Harald (Kim Bodnia) in hot water from the start, and he stoically goes from one misadventure to the next. He’s a great character, bouncing effortlessly between horrible cruelty and touching kindness, following no particular code but the one he’s made up at the moment. Olsen makes little effort at imposing style, only capturing each scene in a way that puts the viewer in the room with the characters and staying out of the way. The mix of Tarantino-style grit and humor surely has Anders Thomas Jensen’s script as a starting point, but the performers are so natural in their actions and reactions that there must have been a great deal of improvisation as well. The only elements taking us out of the picture and recall that it’s a movie are the occasional moments of broad slapstick and wince-inducing stunts, but each of these is so funny that you won’t mind.

 -- Brian Thomas