Mubi Monday: The Boss Of It All (2006)

When Lars von Trier is good, he is very good indeed. The man has made some films I absolutely love, even if I don’t rush to rewatch them. But when he is bad, oh boy, I cannot stand his mix of misanthropy and pretentiousness. I haven’t enjoyed many of his movies from the past decade or so, despite the praise he has received from many others, but I have no preconceptions whenever I sit down to watch one of his movies. Considering I hadn’t even heard of The Boss Of It All before today, I REALLY had no idea about what I was in for.

Peter Gantzler plays Ravn, a man looking to sell his Danish IT company to an Icelandic buyer. But that means the big boss will need to be present to sign the paperwork. The problem Ravn has is that he is the big boss, but nobody in the company knows that. He created a fictional boss figure, who would usually only communicate via sporadic emails, giving him someone to blame for the unpopular decisions while he received praise for any positives. Ravn hires an actor (Kristoffer, played by Jens Albinus) to portray the big boss, which should allow the deal to go through smoothly enough. Unfortunately, Kristoffer cannot play the role without more fully inhabiting his character, which seriously complicates the situation.

Taking aim at both the corporate office world and the mindset of overly earnest method actors, The Boss Of It All IS very funny, which is what you hope for with any comedy. It’s also still very much in the Von Trier style, everything very naturalistic and minimalist, even interspersed with occasional narration from the director himself (mocking the film-making choices used). Other people could have taken this in a number of different directions, from outright farce to a feelgood “fish out of water” tale, but Von Trier has his fun while ensuring that it remains a Von Trier work.

Albinus is very funny in the main role, reaching for motivations and characterizations that are unnecessary, and always seemingly one step away from upsetting the whole plan, while Gantzler is hilariously resigned to the fact that he has put his faith in someone so determined to needlessly complicate things. Iben Hjejle and Mia Lhyne stand out as two female staff members who believe they have a different relationship with their boss, and Friðrik Þór Friðriksson is very funny as the buyer having his patience sorely tested.

Although feeling quite meandering and unfocused at times, The Boss Of It All is actually expertly put together. Almost every gag set-up has a worthwhile payoff, and the loose threads are all tied together in time for a satisfying and very funny finale. I may not have known what to expect, but I am pleased that Von Trier remembered to make a comedy film with actual humour running through it (because, knowing him, that was never guaranteed).

Whether or not you are familiar with other films from this director, I recommend this one. It’s both unlike most of his other work, yet also perfectly at home in his filmography. I am surprised that it isn’t more well-known, because I think it ranks alongside some of his better films.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: Small Town Killers (2017)

A Danish crime comedy that feels very much like a minor Coen brothers movie from early on in their filmography, this is a tale of unhappy spouses hiring killers to deal with their problems, soon realising that the initial idea was only good in theory, and love still remains.

Nicolas Bro and Ulrich Thomsen play Ib and Edward, respectively. Ib is married to Gritt (Mia Lyhne). Edward is married to Ingrid (Lene Maria Christensen). When the men are not being hassled by the local law enforcement (Heinz, played by Søren Malling), they are being given grief by their unhappy wives. And so, after a session of heavy drinking, Edward staggers to a computer and orders an assassin. The Russian (Marcin Dorocinski) arrives, the men wonder if they'll be able to call off the whole thing, and events spiral from there, especially when the women hear of the scheme and hire their own killer, an eccentric elderly English lady named Miss Nippleworthy (Gwen Taylor).

Written and directed by Ole Bornedal (who gave us the excellent Nightwatch about 25 years ago), Small Town Killers is an amusing black comedy that plays around with ideas familiar to anyone who has seen almost any other film in this vein. It's not trying to be groundbreaking or revelatory. It's just trying to be entertaining, which it manages. It's just a shame that Bornedal couldn't find a way to step things up slightly. He has a great cast, yet they often feel as if they're not being used to their full potential.

Bro and Thomsen are endearing losers, with Thomsen doing a particular good number of hangdog expressions of exasperation. Lyhne and Christensen help to keep their characters from being shrill caricatures, instead portraying a pair of women understandably unhappy with husbands who seem to have stopped appreciating them, or making much of an effort, a long time ago. Both Dorocinski and Taylor are very good in their very different performances, with the former being almost permanently drunk, or at least slightly dazed, and the latter being cool and evil under a cunning disguise of old age and politeness.

Amusing, as I already said, but never hilarious. Dark, but never as dark as it could be. Small Town Killers keeps itself very much in a safe middle ground, despite the nature of the content, and that's the biggest problem that it has. Bornedal should have ramped up either the comedy or the darkness. In fact, I suspect ramping up the latter would have automatically helped with the former. There are some onscreen deaths, of course, but this is a film that I suspect would have benefited from a higher bodycount and a sense of increasing mayhem and danger.

If you get the chance to see this without paying any extra for it (e.g. it is on Shudder at the moment) then give it a go. No individual part of it completely fails, and the pacing whisks you speedily enough from the start to the finish. It's just not one that you'll remember a few months later, until someone else mentions it and you give a nod and let them know it was okay.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.