Credits: screenplay: Kim Fupz Aakeson; director of photography: Philip Ogaard; editor: Jens Christian Fodstad; music: Halfdan E; production design: Gert Wibe; costume design: Caroline Satre; producer: Stein B. Kvae, Finn Gjerdrum; production: Paradox;

Country: Norway

Year: 2010

Running time: 105

Colour: Colour

Format: 35 mm

Norwegian director Moland and Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard are a match made in cinema heaven. They have worked together before, on ZERO KELVIN (1995) and ABERDEEN(2000), and presumably have a shorthand. In the criminal comedy A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN they achieve a cool, deceptively simple minimalism which is both perfectly timed and brilliantly pared-down. The film is so rich visually and aurally that it could be appreciated even if the dialogue were removed. Most of the characters here are lowlifes. The better adapted ones are dull. Moland’s heart is with the marginalised, the idiosyncratic. The plotline of Skarsgaard’s character’s searching for the man who turned him in is no more than a device to keep everything else flowing. Moland’s style never impedes on the humanity of his characters, even the weirdest of them. Howard Feinstein