hyped garbage

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Mean, very funny satire with amazing performances by all - and with an absolutely outstanding Mads Mikkelsen. This is a very black comedy, but also a very smart one that shows once more that Scandinavian - and especially Danish - cinema had some of the most diverse and creative output in Europe over the last two decades. 8 stars out of 10.In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:imdb.com/list/ls070242495

"Adam's Apples" is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen--so strange that I am not even sure if I liked it or not! It certainly IS a one-of-a-kind viewing experience!!When the film begins, Adam (Ulrich Thomsen) is being paroled to the custody of a very strange priest, Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen). Despite Adam being a thoroughly unrepentant neo-Nazi, Ivan seems oblivious to the evil man who he's agreed to care for...as well as two other rather screwed up criminals he's already caring for at his church. Through the course of the film, Adam is amazed that Ivan has the most horrible life on Earth...yet he is bizarrely optimistic and happy. Even when Adam nearly beats Ivan to death, Ivan is still idealistic to the point of insanity. What gives? And, what does making an apple pie have to do with all this?!Technically speaking, the film is well made and the acting good. I was also impressed by how all this ended. But it certainly IS a strange journey...one that is challenging for most viewers. It's about the strangest and darkest comedies I've ever seen, that's for sure!

Weird Danish film. Sub–titled. Danish doesn't sound like anything in English.Man, I thought we Swedes were dark. A Neo–Nazi is paroled to the custody of a devout Lutheran Minister. The minister brags of his prior successes with a drunken rapist and a hardened armed robber, who continued to stay with him after their paroles and rehabilitation. He asks the Neo–Nazi to set any goal. The Neo–Nazi jokingly suggests he'll bake a pie from the apple tree when they are ripe. The Neo-Nazi thinks the minister is delusional and decides to break him. The minister thinks every problem is just a test from the devil.Normally black humour isn't funny, but we laughed till tears repeatedly. A character gets a massive bullet wound to the head, and the doctor said, "That's what we call a Half–Kennedy."

Until I saw this film last night, I thought that Bjork was the ultimate in significant meaninglessness. A new standard has emerged. If I didn't know the heroic role of the Danes during WWII, I'd have been less annoyed by the passive passion and empty moralizing.The Book of Job plays a role in defining the action, and might have added a powerful message about man vs. God. Unfortunately, the writer seems to have skipped the poetic climax of this scriptural story."Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?", God replies to the torment of Job. Archibald MacLeish and Tom Paine understood the magnitude of this question. Few things are as frustrating as a script that is overwhelmed by the concept it addresses.Even the "assault" on Big Oil is trivialized as a ransacking of a filling station, making victims, not of the Wealthy, but of their underpaid employees.The Director has managed to place an emotional filter between the viewer and the screen. Do we care? Is there a connection? Perhaps for those pathetic individuals who gather stoically around a traffic accident. I think I should lie down and wait for my feelings to subside.