"Tämä tuhansien murheellisten leffojen maa..."
("This land of thousands of melancholic movies...")
- Finnish MAD Magazine
(parodying Eppu Normaali's "Murheellisten laulujen maa",
the "theme song" of this movie)
A 1999 movie directed by Aleksi Mäkelä. Starring Samuli Edelmann, Juha Veijonen, Teemu Lehtilä and others.
Crime, black humor, beautiful summer-time Finland, and violence! With knives! They're Real Men™®©!
The movie is set in southern Pohjanmaa - in a place where people have this tendency to play around with the knives (apologies for this sweeping and completely inaccurate stereotype!). Two guys, Jussi (Edelmann) and Antti (Veijonen) get home from prison, where they sat for 5 years for bank robbery.
Meanwhile, the third, non-prisoned bank robber, Heikki (Lehtilä) has been a good citizen, studied too, and has become The Law and Order in the town after the old police chief, who has had some "understanding" for the criminals, retired. He tries to be actually a honorable law enforcer, but... well... Jussi and Antti probably don't find it too interesting that their friend has a quite controversial profession, would they?
Jussi and Antti are not good citizens, and don't become ones. They keep misbehaving and don't get along in the work. So, they decide to earn the money for the payments they're due the old way. They sell spirits and booze to people - not exactly a legitimate business, but profitable.
Also, they didn't find the stash. Someone took the robbed money. They threaten and punish people who they think were responsible.
So, we're in multiple dilemmas: Who took the money? What will happen to the little business of these two? How about the people of the town? And what of our good citizen Heikki, who is supposed to be a good cop but happens to be on the wrong end of the shotgun?
My impressions of the movie: Well, it is violent. It has considerable amounts of "humor" from big (armed and malevolent) children. Bodies and somewhat messy deaths and cold-blooded killing, ick.
It does, though, have a very interesting plot with multiple conflicting things. It does have some pondering on the problems of society and questions how well the criminals get used to "normal life". I still, overall, liked it, even when the roughest parts of the movie were a bit over the top. I think I will eventually buy the DVD.
"...young girls drink booze, and big guys eat salad..."
(An Old Man's Analysis of the Status Quo)