The world is awash with awful police movies, and Sweden has contributed some to this fact. "Livvakterna" (The Bodyguards) is a fresh new attempt at the Swedish police thriller, and actually succeeds. The victim of a Russian mafia scam, Sven Persson (Fröler) is blackmailed by some mercenary ex-Stasi super-criminal and his gang. When Persson refuses to pay up, well... you know the drill. Nothing really revolutionary. Meanwhile, former police investigator Johan Falk quits the force because he is ostracized by his superiors (again, nothing new) and joins a team of bodyguards to back his old pal Sven Persson up against the mafia gang.
No new twists and turns, the same old story. Then why is it good? Well, the characters are believable, the performances are good, and there is something different about Swedish action-thriller flicks. This one is far more violent than most, but is still kept at a fairly decent level, no tremendous explosions and stuff, just plain shooting, car chasing through the Swedish forest (very nice) and then shooting some more before the quite exciting finale. Of course, in line with tradition, there's a lot of looking confused, grim, confused again and then very, very dedicated before the good guys win (oh, gimme a break, that's not a spoiler).
Performances are fine, except for maybe Alexandra Rapaport who should just stay away from this kind of film for she is clearly not cut out for it. The action itself is believable and even cool at some points. So, all in all, a good action movie. And Swedish at that.
No new twists and turns, the same old story. Then why is it good? Well, the characters are believable, the performances are good, and there is something different about Swedish action-thriller flicks. This one is far more violent than most, but is still kept at a fairly decent level, no tremendous explosions and stuff, just plain shooting, car chasing through the Swedish forest (very nice) and then shooting some more before the quite exciting finale. Of course, in line with tradition, there's a lot of looking confused, grim, confused again and then very, very dedicated before the good guys win (oh, gimme a break, that's not a spoiler).
Performances are fine, except for maybe Alexandra Rapaport who should just stay away from this kind of film for she is clearly not cut out for it. The action itself is believable and even cool at some points. So, all in all, a good action movie. And Swedish at that.