4 out of 5

Director: Anders Nilsson

The return of main man Anders Nilsson to both writing and direction throne for ‘107 Patriots’ brings with it some of the Falk elements that marked the initial entries in the series – a bit more of a political / timely focus, juxtaposing Johan’s brashness with his position in GSI, and deeper character moments smoothly glossed through via very carefully selected clips of dialogue.  It is an excellent addition to the flicks, but compared to the very cinematic ‘Spelets Regler’, the movie prior to this one, ‘107’ feels a little like a step back to safer television territory.  Nilsson starts things off effectively enough with a park shootout that feels properly chaotic, making good use of a handheld camera work, but this is fairly typical of the JF setups – explosions at the start meriting police involvement – and 107 follows suit, this chaos evolving into a procedural to track down the offending sides of the shootout and to understand the ‘why’, with happy or unfortunate accidents along the way requiring constant revision by Falk or GSI to their plans.  The plot ends up being rather fascinating, focusing on a legion of neo-Nazis operating in Sweden and their typical enigmatic leader, getting involved in gun exchanges with Rydell’s gang while trying to enforce their ‘white is right’ policy.  Nilsson’s scripting properly lampoons their beliefs without rubbing it in your face, again with the smartly sprinkled dialogue bits (monkeys writing Shakespeare, deception to fight deception, spoken to without American smugness) – and the elder Rydell’s constant smirk-in-tow – underlining how party lines are all fun and good, but it just boils down to people killing people either way.

Seth Rydell (Jens Hultén) is particularly terrifying in this entry, believably evolving his character post jail time into a man belying patience but ready to snap into sudden violence at any moment.  At several points during the tale we are brought to question why we follow any given leader when death is just a bullet to the head away; instead of feeling silly (‘Why follow this guy?’), it supports the whole mindless sheep mentality of any political structure echoing that of the Nazi brotherhood use here… meaning Rydell’s gang as well.

Frank’s bit feels sort of stuffed in just to give us fodder for another entry, and typical of Nilsson, Helen only appears as a background tool to continue dressing Falk’s personal life with clashing colored curtains.  (Woot woot)

It’s wonderful to get the kind of stability in scripting and directing that Anders brings with him; and brother Bengt’s music has some new themes that keep the action feeling fresh.  ‘De 107 Patrioterna’ keeps the quality of the series very high, but as we’ve generally shuttled elements through the films in chunks, the introduction and seeming resolution of Sweden’s Nazi problem in one film feels a little too encapsulated.  Still, there are so many important pieces put into play for other Falky stuff – Sofia gets another fascinating shift to her role – that the movie doesn’t have the sidestory feel of some of the others, just a slight calm before another storm.