Reykjavík Rotterdam

Director Óskar Jónasson is mostly known here in Iceland as a comedy director, having made the film Sódóma Reykjavík (Remote Control) in the early 90's that shot him up to fame and the film has become a true comedy classic over here. He followed that up with another comedy and then went on to direct some of the more popular comedy sketch shows over here. So it came as a surprise that he was writing and slated to direct a straight thriller, co-written by the author of Jar City, Arnaldur Indriðason and starring the director of that film Baltasar Kormákur and even the lead actor Ingvar E. Sigurðsson (it's a small country).
Now Icelandic thrillers do not have what you would call a rosy history. All past attempts have failed miserably so when Jar City came along and showed us that it could be done, if you put your mind to it, the news that a new thriller was in the works didn't fill you with dread anymore.

Kristófer (Baltasar Kormákur) is an ex con working as a security guard and trying to support his family of three, his wife Íris (Lilja Nótt Þórarinsdóttir) and their two sons (Baltasar's actual sons). Things look bleak cause they are behind on their rent and to top it all off the landlord wants to sell the apartment. They do get some financial help from their friend Steingrímur (Ingvar E. Sigurðsson), Íris' ex boyfriend and Kristófer's former partner in crime who our hero took the fall for, but Kristófer feels that it is basically undermining his masculinity and his role as a father and a husband to have his friend bail him out all the time.
When Íris' brother who's smuggling booze through a shipping freighter, panics when the custom agents board the ship and throws the loot overboard, much to the dislike of the local thugs who funded the trip, begs for help Kristófer begrudgingly agrees to help him out. They have to go back to Rotterdam to buy more product and the trip is to be funded by Steingrímur who is maybe too willing to send his old friend out there and take care of Íris while he's gone.
Back on the same freighter he was arrested on all those years ago he has to deal with his captain who, rightly so, doesn't trust him, the local police who know he's back on board and a psychopathic Dutch criminal who is to be the supplier of the ill gotten goods he has to bring home.

One of the things that have ruined local thrillers of the past is the introduction of a gun or guns in to the story and how they always try to emulate their US counterparts. The thing is that the second some one pulls out a gun in an Icelandic movie you've lost the viewer cause these things simply don't happen here and so the audience doesn't buy it and the whole thing becomes laughable. It's quite brilliant and simple how they deal with that in Reykjavík Rotterdam, all the gun play takes place overseas where these things are more likely to happen than here, or at least the audience is more inclined to believe it happens more abroad than here.

Óskar Jónasson has done a good job of weaving together a tight little movie that keeps things down to earth, much like Jar City did and doesn't fall in to the same pitt falls that other Icelandic thrillers have stumbled in to so often. Even though the basic story isn't the most original one out there the cast keep things going and bring a certain realism to the table. It's fairly simple but works. It starts out slowly but picks up the pace in the second half and the later parts of the film are exciting and tense.

The film flows tightly through its paces, maybe too tightly in some cases cause I felt the Rotterdam sequences were a little bit too short and the events that took place in them a little too convenient for our hero. As I said before the script might not be the most original one (one last job that goes to shit type of deal) but it deals with it so that doesn't seem out of place in the Icelandic setting, never going too far or stylized but keeping things down to earth and realistic. The film looks great as well, sporting the same cinematographer as Jar City, Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson, who gives it a naturalistic and gritty look.

This flick makes me believe that Icelandic filmmaking is finally out of it's decades long funk, that Jar City wasn't just a fluke and that local filmmakers finally know how to do proper genre films.