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Rating:  - Awesome!
I stumbled upon this movie on IFC one night and cannot believe I never heard of it before. I'm buying it for my collection and to share with friends. Loved it.
Rating: - Can't believe it took so long
I saw this nearly two years ago with Danish fiends and have been waiting for a local version... somehow it took two years.
In full agreement with the first reviewer who wrote with more detail and with greater and more eloquent length than will be here. But this movie is incredibly well-crafted in the stark extremes that are not only brought up but appear to be openly examined to allow the audience the shock of feeling that they should feel this or that based on the conventions that we often imprison ourselves in.
Tendency to think to self: Offense or shame or I-shouldn't be laughing at this, may come to mind at times, but this movie made me feel like it was a litmus test of my own psychological tendencies towards atrophied groupthink.
These moments or debates don't come up enough here; for being a standard U.S. citizen this movie is in the capacity of Eddie Izzard stand-up or Kurt Vonnegut worlds in permitting a vacation of the mind from the daily preoccupations and recycled comments to the matters brought up and discussed and done permitting the viewer to be part, without embarassment but occasionally with a bit of discomfort, for fun... c'est la vie.
And to my favorite Denmarkperson, Skol!
Rating: - FABULOUS
I saw this movie at the Sundance Film Festival a few years ago and STILL tell friends about it! It's the perfect blend of crazy and dark humor- very well written, the acting is superb and the cast is remarkable.
Rating: - Epic struggle of good and evil in this metaphysical dark comedy -- cross between Kierkegaard and Groucho Marx
Adam, a convicted criminal and skinhead prone to violent rages, is sent to serve out the remainder of his jail sentence in community service at a small town church. The pastor, who refuses to accept -- even in the face of the most plain evidence -- that anyone can possibly be evil, assigns to him a task that seems trivial, until it begins to appear that the very cosmos is conspiring against him. The film explores the classic conflict between faith and reason and between good and evil in the most blunt way imaginable -- by pitting an obstinately naive believer against a stubbornly unrepentant and bitter neo-Nazi -- and completely avoids the pitfalls of predictability.
Adam's Apples manages to be both hilarious and profound, as well as endlessly inventive. Just when you think the stakes can't get any higher, something happens that is utterly unexpected and over the top and in hindsight completely in line with the plot as so far developed. Then the filmmaker ratchets things up a bit more. The mood, alternating between cheerful optimism and deep pessimism, is perfectly sustained by a rich musical score and by the lavish cinematography. This is a finely crafted film.
For those who are familiar with Danish film and especially with the Dogme 95 movement (in which Anders Thomas Jensen was a major contributor), the major actors will be familiar but are playing here gleefully against type. Mads Mikkelsen (yes, the bad guy from Casino Royale) as the pastor; Ulrich Thompson as the overweight convict Nazi, Adam; Parika Steen as a pregnant alcoholic. Every one of the characters is somehow both despicable and extremely likable. This was my favorite film that played at Sundance in 2006, and I have been surprised that it didn't get more widely publicized -- since every audience I saw it with (twice at Sundance and again in Florida) was practically rolling in the aisles and raving afterwards. My sense is that the religious theme, combined with a bit of pretty graphic violence and language, scared critics away and kept it from being widely released. That's a shame since it is a very well-made and very funny movie, that raises intriguing questions anyone with an open mind, whether religious or not, should find important. (in Danish w/ English subtitles)
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