Director: Anders Nilsson

4 out of 5

It feels a little unfocused, but the fifth Johan film ends up being an excellent addition as it successfully evolves several key chunks of the story while maintaining its sudden sense of reality that has kept the series gripping.

So unlike the prior films, we don’t start out with a switch of scenery or jobs – Falk is still with GSI, and has sunk into a more trusted, involved role both within the department proper and with his informant, Frank, who helps run guns and resources for a local gang GSI is trying to correctly bring to justice… meaning there’s the whole business with snitches and political cat-and-mouse that rumbles ‘neath the surface of GSI’s covert functionings, and its again an un-American concept that director / writer Nilsson mostly leaves as assumed due to conversational snippets.  ‘Vapenbröder’ is also the first that, sure, begins to feel less like a stand-alone as an ongoing series – even though it can be watched alone – it’s heavily rewarding for those who’ve followed Falk’s troubled stumbling in finding his place in the world.  His relationship with Anna is heard and not seen, and this is telling enough to new viewers but his handling of it – effectively quiet as always portrayed with just enough dramatic pitch by Eklund to keep Falk feeling real) – is especially compelling when combined with the path that plotline has taken for four flicks.  Same goes for Frank’s spiraling role in the underworld.  Seeing the formation of that relationship in the previous GSI really sells how unfortunate of an arrangement this is, even if the expression of such is (AGAIN… unAmericanly) not loudly expressed through swearing matches.

But though we might’ve taken out some of the loud gunplay and blood splatter and the great thematic score is once again relegated to mostly just the end credits, this doesn’t change the intelligence of Nilsson’s writing, which does not avoid the brutal results of this lifestyle.  Witness the incredibly bummer ending shot of Johan, unable to face the world, as well as the excellent make-up effects used on one of Frank’s crew (Martin, I believe?  Sorry, names… not so good.  See how I can’t remember the name of the actor playing Frank even though that’s why I’m watching the series?  Yeah.) for almost the entire film after he suffers through a horrid beating.  The make-up looks believably awful and painful, and the dude is in a huge chunk of the movie and it just looks… harsh.  He doesn’t heal up to one band-aid after a couple scenes; it’s not very Hollywood.

Which leads to my last repeated compliment – that the whole structure of the series, and this entry in particular, succeed on the whole because of how legitimately it plays.  There’s no double-crossing bullshit.  GSI works as effectively as a team as could be expected – no one’s an ace or crack shot; there are no crazy rogue agents.  They communicate, they have a common goal, they aren’t ridiculously jaded OR naive.  Easy characteristics that can be used to waste screen-time are left aside to focus on, mainly, our crime-of-the-film, and then as well-woven ripples come the way this relates to us how Johan may be changing (or staying the same, yes?).

The only thing really preventing this from being The One to Watch is that like the second film, it feels sort of like a side story for some reason, or rather that the actual crime – in this case Frank’s crew plans a prison break, and it’s a bit more high-level crime than he’s normally wrapped up in, so GSI has to get involved… in a way that won’t risk their informant – never feels like the absolute focus, just a result of us happening to watch the story at this point in time.  But that doesn’t prevent it from being another interesting and uniquely straight-forward addition to our strangely mundane and yet thrilling world of Falk movies.