Polar: Just the Tip of the Crapberg

Polar is one of those movies that seems like it would be impossible to fuck up. It stars cool-as-hell Mads Mikkelsen as a contract killer known as The Black Kaiser. That alone should have been enough to make this a great movie. Yet, they managed to completely bungle everything from start to finish.

The story is tired. Mikkelsen is retiring, but he has to do one last job before his employer lets him go. Of course. It’s always one last job, or one week until retirement, isn’t it? Anyway, the final job is a double-cross. The employer plans to kill Mikkelsen so he doesn’t have to pay him his $8 million pension. Mikkelsen survives, and vows vengeance against those who turned on him. Once again, this premise seems impossible to fuck up. It’s astounding that they did.

The biggest problem is the style of the movie. It has this over-the-top, loony comedy style. But it isn’t funny at all, it’s just really fucking annoying. It’s trying to go for, I don’t know, a Smokin’ Aces vibe or something. When a new character shows up, the film freezes to show their name in bold letters. When the movie changes locations, it shows the name of the place in a funky font with cash register and gunshot sound effects. It focuses on bloodletting, but not cleverly. It’s not like John Wick or Kill Bill that showed ultra-violence in inventive ways. No, it’s just blood splattering around the screen, or a CGI head getting tossed out a window. It’s uninspired. It’s like a teenage boy obsessed with Quentin Tarantino got hold of a multi-million dollar budget.

I’m not sure if the villain, this Baby Huey tub of lard is supposed to be funny or intimidating, but he’s neither, he is really fucking annoying. The movie drags on far too long, offering nothing new to the genre. Mikkelsen miraculously manages to bring in a solid performance, because the guy is a professional. Otherwise, there’s pretty much nothing worthwhile here. There’s some pretty good sex scenes, though, so I guess that’s cool.

Verdict: Shitty

Slow West, The Salvation

Slow West

Slow West is a pretty good title for this movie. Boring West would also work. It was helmed by Scottish director John Mclean who barely understands the genre. The film’s languid pacing makes this 84-minute film feel three times as long. The characters are barely characters at all, merely one-dimensional constructs for lurching the plot along incrementally. The only action scene comes at the end of the movie, and the main character retardedly throws himself into a bullet and dies. Michael F. Assbender stars in this, and it was the only reason I gave it a chance. The movie sucks, and even though he’s a good actor, he couldn’t save it. Westerns without a story or at least without a charismatic character are pointless. They thrive on personal drama, punctuated by violence that has come after slowly building suspense. Slow West delivers none of that, only the slowness.

Verdict: Shitty

The Salvation

The Salvation is about a Danish immigrant who travels across the old west. I liked this angle, because there were a lot of immigrants in this period of U.S. history, and until now they have been left out of the story on the silver screen. Mads Mikkelsen plays a former Danish sharpshooter who immigrates with his family, only to have tragedy strike at the hands of ruthless gang members. What follows is a dual tale of revenge, with gang leader Jeffrey Dean Morgan attempting to get revenge on Mikkelsen, and Mikkelsen attempting to get revenge against the entire gang. Morgan is completely over-the-top with his scene chewing, and almost ruins the movie, but manages to keep it reined in enough to not lose it altogether. Mikkelsen is pitch-perfect as a man-on-fire looking for vengeance, but who is also smart enough to know he needs to keep his cool in order to survive. I liked that he prefers a rifle over a revolver, which is a different choice for the genre, and set the action scenes apart from genre standards. Eva Green is underutilized as Morgan’s girlfriend, but she has a great scene at the end. The biggest problem is the movie doesn’t feel like a real, lived-in world. The town feels like a set, and none of the characters are fleshed out except for Mikkelsen. You don’t really get fully absorbed, and always know you are watching a movie. The Salvation has plenty of action, and will satisfy any fan of the genre. It’s worth a look, especially for Mikkelsen’s performance, and the fact that it’s a modern western that isn’t boring.

Verdict: Average