In Order of Disappearance (Kraftidioten) (2014)

Crime, Thriller, Action

Director: Hans Petter Moland
Writer: Kim Fupz Aakeson
Starring: Kåre Conradi, Huyen Huynh, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Adil Halitaj

"Death Wish set in Fargo, but funnier... and bloodier!"

A relatively unknown but highly recommended Norwegian tale of revenge.

Swedish veteran actor Stellan Skarsgård plays a small-town snow plow service owner whose twentysomething son suddenly turns up dead in Oslo of a drug overdose. Knowing he wasn't even a drug user, he starts digging deeper and finds out that the young man was murdered by local mafia hit men. As he sets out to get his revenge, he ends up capturing, torturing, and killing a chain of bad guys, each higher up on the mobster ranks than the last.

The film is animated with an extremely colorful cast of characters with strong vivid personalities, including a retired mobster known as Wingman, a Japanese-Danish hit man familiar to clients as the Chinaman, a vegan mob boss called The Count, or Scandinavia's top Serbian drug lord, known to all as Papa, played by German actor Bruno Ganz (The Downfall). Adding to the power of the story are the majestic cinematography, that beautifully exploits the blindingly white Norwegian winter scenery, and lead actor Stellan Skarsgård, who delivers a pretty unforgettable performance. A clever piss-take on the modern revenge genre, Kraftidioten (the original Norwegian title, that translates roughly as "The Prize Idiot") is a highly-entertaining violent black comedy that in many ways reminds of the ones of Quentin Tarantino or the Coen Brothers.

Plot summary from IMDb: The honorable citizen Nils ploughs snow in the wild winter mountains of Norway, when his son is mistakenly murdered, Nils takes action, which ignites a war between the vegan gangster "the Count" and the Serbian mafia boss Papa.

Awards: 3 wins & 9 nominations.
Runtime: 116 min
R