Butler's Cinema Scene

Stellan Skarsgard

“IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE”  My rating: B-

116 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Avoid pissing off civil servants. They have so many ways to get even.

In the Norwegian thriller “In Order of Disappearance” a nondescript  snowplow driver  (apparently it’s a year-around gig in parts of that Scandinavian nation) goes on a methodical killing spree to avenge his son’s murder.

As Hans Petter Moland’s film begins, Nils Dickman (Stellan Skarsgard) is being honored as his tiny burg’s Citizen of the Year. He’s a hard-working, inoffensive sort who gets up early every morning to clear the roads in his mountainous district — “Just a guy who keeps a strip of civilization open through the wilderness.”  For fun he reads technical manuals for heavy-duty snow removal equipment.

But when his son is found dead — apparently of a drug overdose — Dickman refuses accept the official police version of events. He discovers that his boy was collateral damage in a drug smuggling conspiracy operating out of the snowbound regional airport where the kid worked maintenance.

So this working stiff nearing retirement saws down his hunting rifle (so that it can be concealed beneath his snow parka) and systematically begins working his way up the food chain of the local drug gang. He dumps the bodies in a scenic waterfall.

Kim Fupz Akeson’s screenplay is a balancing act between genuine outrage/grief and black comedy ala Tarantino and the Coen Brothers. Skarsgard plays it straight — he’s a man on a mission — but the crooks he picks off one by one are flamboyantly offbeat.

The main baddie is The Count (Pal Sverre Hagen), a preening, pony-tailed sociopath art collector who, when he’s not giving orders to have people killed, is advocating for veganism.

Kristofer Hiviu, Stellan Skarsgard

The Count becomes concerned when, one by one, his thugs vanish. Suspecting they’re being eliminated by a rival Serbian gang, he retaliates. Which infuriates the Serbian patriarch Papa (the great Bruno Ganz, conversing in  wheeze worthy of William Hickey in “Prizzi’s Honor”).

Pretty soon there’s a full-fledged drug war underway, with the nondescript Dickman picking up the pieces — or, more accurately, leaving even more pieces strewn about.

There are some moments here that are pure Hitchcock (a strangling that goes on way longer than Dickman finds convenient). The film also references O. Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief” when Dickman snatches The Count’s young son (Jack Sodahl Moland) and finds himself bonding with the kid, and “Fargo,” when a body gets shredded in a nod to the infamous woodchopper scene.

And in a moment of pure Tarantino, a couple of Serbian mobsters sing the praises of Norwegian prisons: “No guards bothering you. No rapes. Even the inmates are nice.” Plus free dental work.

After every death the screen goes black and in white letters the name of the newly deceased appears, accompanied by the appropriate religious symbol (cross, Star of David, etc.).  After a while director Moland doesn’t even have to show us anybody getting killed. He simply cuts to black and the cinematic tombstone acknowledges the character’s passing.

“In Order of Disappearance” runs perhaps 15 minutes too long, but its blend of   gruesome laughs, brutal action and wacky characters is intriguing.  In fact, it’s being remade as a vehicle for Liam Neeson.

| Robert W. Butler