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!"
SPOILER
The 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.
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!"
SPOILER
The 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.