C
Cybernoid
Guest
This film probably hasn't been released outside Europe yet. It's a Swedish action film released in 2003. It's about organized crime in Europe in the present/near future, with Europol leading the fight againts it. The entire continent is being stolen by organized crime, thousands of corporations and banks are just fronts for criminals. To put a long story short, a former Swedish cop goes rogue and decides to take matters into his own hands (not that he has a choice). A private security company also becomes involved, as well as the mandatory assassins.
The thing is: this film is high quality. Everything about it is on par with American action films, except it's more grounded in reality and doesn't have explosions every five minutes, nor does it have any bad cliches. The film feels as if it could really happen in the near future, with organized crime becoming more and more pervasive. One interesting aspect of the film is how technology is used by both criminals and officials to do whatever it is that they want to do. Mobile phones are used for a staggering amount of purposes. I will give an example: a hitman receives a phone call. He says "wrong number" and hangs up. Then, he quickly switches his phone's sim card and receives another call. The caller wants him to kill someone. The caller then sends him a photograph of the target, using his phone's camera. The hitman then destroys the sim card he used. And this is for real, too: disposable phones and sim cards are popular among criminals.
In another part, the heroes need equipment for surveillance, eavesdropping and whatnot. Well, instead of getting some secret CIA black operations stuff, they simply walk into the nearest shop and buy normal, everyday commercial devices. Problem solved. One really cool scene involves a car chase, but it has a twist. Instead of a high-speed chase with cars exploding and piling up, it takes place in a forest zone in the middle of the night. The problem is not keeping up, the problem is finding the cars your are chasing, because there are many roads and visibility is poor. Tracking the target's GPS uplink is a good start, but the targets in question make things a bit harder by turning off the car lights and putting on night vision goggles! One last example: snipers are discovered by using a device which simply scans the enviroment for radio devices. The scanner finds one, and the snipers are exposed.
The action is pretty levelheaded, and gunshot wounds actually matter. Taking a bullet through your leg means that you'll spend the rest of the film in a hospital. Other things: the score is very good, acting is a non-issue and the film is very international, with characters from many countries.
Great stuff, at any rate. Even us Europeans can make action films (except Finland, meh).
The thing is: this film is high quality. Everything about it is on par with American action films, except it's more grounded in reality and doesn't have explosions every five minutes, nor does it have any bad cliches. The film feels as if it could really happen in the near future, with organized crime becoming more and more pervasive. One interesting aspect of the film is how technology is used by both criminals and officials to do whatever it is that they want to do. Mobile phones are used for a staggering amount of purposes. I will give an example: a hitman receives a phone call. He says "wrong number" and hangs up. Then, he quickly switches his phone's sim card and receives another call. The caller wants him to kill someone. The caller then sends him a photograph of the target, using his phone's camera. The hitman then destroys the sim card he used. And this is for real, too: disposable phones and sim cards are popular among criminals.
In another part, the heroes need equipment for surveillance, eavesdropping and whatnot. Well, instead of getting some secret CIA black operations stuff, they simply walk into the nearest shop and buy normal, everyday commercial devices. Problem solved. One really cool scene involves a car chase, but it has a twist. Instead of a high-speed chase with cars exploding and piling up, it takes place in a forest zone in the middle of the night. The problem is not keeping up, the problem is finding the cars your are chasing, because there are many roads and visibility is poor. Tracking the target's GPS uplink is a good start, but the targets in question make things a bit harder by turning off the car lights and putting on night vision goggles! One last example: snipers are discovered by using a device which simply scans the enviroment for radio devices. The scanner finds one, and the snipers are exposed.
The action is pretty levelheaded, and gunshot wounds actually matter. Taking a bullet through your leg means that you'll spend the rest of the film in a hospital. Other things: the score is very good, acting is a non-issue and the film is very international, with characters from many countries.
Great stuff, at any rate. Even us Europeans can make action films (except Finland, meh).
