4 out of 5

Director: Anders Nilsson

Yes, this first of the Swedish ‘Johan Falk’ series is, admittedly, nothing really out of the ordinary, and has a couple of bumps and bruises in the scripting and execution (hello, boom mic), but by the same token there’s something incredibly charming and watchable about it that struck an odd balance between 90s straight-to-video fare and some kind of sparkling gem.

Let’s get all America-focused and say that besides, perhaps, some select niches – samurai/yakuza or ghost revenge flicks for Asian cinema, French film, etc. – most genres have a particular American taint to them.  And so when we cross borders and get a foreign language edition of something, it’s easy, generally, to see where they’re nipping from American conventions or inevitably influenced by them.  And Noll Tolerans fits squarely in the cop genre, no doubt.  But for a movie made in 1999 – there is a budget, it’s well shot, well acted – it surprisingly weaves its way through and around all of the stereotypes to forge maybe not a completely notable identity, one that is its own, fair and square.  We have the haunted past, the mystery figure who’s betraying everyone, the troubled inter-department romance… but Anders Nilsson’s script dribbles this stuff into the film in a sort of ‘right, you get it,’ fashion.  It’s not exactly subtle, but he doesn’t linger on it or spell it out in a melodramatic American fashion with music stings and stirring camera angles.  Johan has a picture of his ex-wife in a box in the attic.  Get it?

So it’s Christmas, and Johan – played with a believable competence by Jakob Eklund, who might be awesome, with a sort of crooked face that makes it look like he’s almost always grinning – interrupts a jewel heist, which turns into a hostage bit, during which criminal Leo Gault shoots Santa Claus in front of his kid (yayyy) and three witnesses.  But Gault threatens all of the witnesses and gets away!  And then he frames Johan!  And then Johan escapes and is determined to put Gault away!  …And it all unrolls at a reliable pace.  Johan breaks out of custody but its doesn’t come across as rash, just determined.  We get a few red herrings and furtive glances to mislead us as to who the secret bad guy is and, you know what, I guessed wrong.  It’s a well played little feint that I don’t quite get ’cause the subtitles didn’t apply to a shot of a brochure that seemed to be the explanation BUT REGARDLESS it was a nifty gambit.  (Though we don’t get any of the aftermath, either).

The script and sets hang on the edge of fluff at moments, but it never crosses the line and then it’s on to the next scene.  Every actor carries their role effectively, and the action has a similar does-the-job, unflashy feel to it.

So four stars is probably generous, but I really enjoyed watching the film, despite being aware that it was pretty normal through and through.  And it’s been a while that something doesn’t shock me into ultra-critical mode because we’re trying too hard or we skipped a bit here or whatever.  And I’m a big supporter of teams who stick together – such as the crew that’s bundled like 20 of these Falk films.  ‘Noll Tolerans’ had no misconceptions about what it was, and didn’t attempt to dress it up with bells and whistles.  Looking forward to the next one.