Max Manus (2009)

Directors: Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg

Writer: Thomas Nordseth-Tiller

"Who the hell stops drinking in the middle of a bloody war?"


Max Manus is the true story of one of Norway's most famous resistance fighters during the German Occupation. It is the most successful Norwegian film ever made, and I'm measuring success in this case by the number of attendance recorded. The plot follows Max through Finland, Scotland and Norway, as he becomes a sabateur for the British secret service. This film was luke warm, as there isn't anything disastrously wrong with it. It's consistently mediocre, it doesn't really wow you on any fronts.

This film simply is NOT fucking around. It jumps straight into the plot, as Max seemingly doesn't have a wife or existence before the war. The first thing he does is joins a brigade of Norwegian volunteers to help repel the Soviet invasion of Finland, and then comes back pissed off at the fact that Norway is pretty much occupied without a fight. He then hooks up with a bunch of guys (we don't know how they know each other, or how they meet) and they started getting guns and making plans. As you can probably already tell, I have a problem with the film's pace. It's so fast, skimming through major events without any sort of, at least superficial, explanation. The film focuses on what Max DOES uniquely, leaving out the why, and fails to go beyond the simple actions. We do get a reason why he becomes a guerrilla, saying that he is just a good patriot. This is such a cop-out, jerk off motivation. I love my country. It takes no effort to write, no deep character explanation. Just I love my country. No doubt that Max probably was intensely patriotic, but was that his only motivation? Did others in his group have other motivations? We don't know, because the film shrugs and says who cares? The entire "for king and country" routine gets old really really fast, as Max also bows down to lick the boots of the exiled king. Although I can understand that he likes his nation, it's hard for me to not think his pathetic when tears start rolling down his cheeks at the sight of an old man in an 1800 military uniform. Later on, a love story develops, but it's not very interesting and are easily the weakest part of the film. Max's "nerves' start going near the end, as the guilt and stress of losing friends starts to pile up. These parts are easily the strongest part of the film, and by far the most interesting. Too bad they are at the end of the film, which makes them in a sense worse because throughout the film Max is seen as a stone cold bad ass, but suddenly he turns all soft without I feel a sort of proper transition. This film felt more like a national myth making project than a work of art.

The production and direction of this film is again sort of in the same vein. It was shot on location in Norway, and marks the first time since the occupation that nazi flags have been shown in public in Norway. The film continues the 21 century tradition of way too many ineffective hand held overly shaky shots, but it's not as bad as you would think as a large part of the film is all about action. I'm not going to say much about the dialogue, as it's pretty standard because I don't speak Norwegian, I have no idea if the translation was any good. The only music in the film is standard Hollywood style epic composition, nothing out of the ordinary. The direction is so average that's actually hard for me to come up with things to say about it. It's like any other historical epic, albeit a little more biopic than usual. Overall, I really think this film was dull, un-interesting. Good or bad? It's hard to say. It's not bad as in I felt the theater angry, enraged or shaking my head. But I didn't leave the theater really thinking about the film very much. It just sort of...passes through you, without any sort of mark.

If your Norwegian and you want to get know to now one of your most bad-ass public figures, then knock yourself out, maybe you'll like it. And if you just want to see nazis getting destroyed...sorry there actually isn't much nazi killing in this film (I KNOW!). I dunno...I wouldn't recommend it, but I can see how others would find it entertaining.