Terrified and bloody, Oscar Svendsen awakes clinched to a shotgun in a strippers joint. Around him 8 dead men, and police aiming at him. To Oscar it's clear that he is innocent. It all started when four chaps won 1,7 million on the pools...
While not a game-changer, Jackpot is the kind of sprightly low-budget import which is likely to reward fans of the Nordic crime genre.
Although it can’t help but feel a touch retro in comparison to Sweden’s more sophisticated recent output, it gets by on good-humoured bad taste alone.
Casually gruesome and corpse-littered, it’s a shaggy dog story with an almost buried emotional core about friendship, betrayal, temporary alliance and craftiness.
Its Guy Ritchie-esque stylistic flourishes soon wear a little thin and only the subtitles and the setting prevent it from immediately seeming like the generic crime caper it really is.
As straightforward – and disposable – as an airport paperback.
The latest Jo Nesbø adaptation fulfils the gore quota, but its sense of humour is suspect.
It’s more under-plotted shaggy dog story than suspenseful and clever narrative.
Funny, outrageous and often surprising, it manages to combine black comedy with convincing police procedural detail and is based on a story by the redoubtable Jo Nesbø.
Not as slick as Headhunters, or as inventive, but a successful marriage of crime and comedy, played to deadpan perfection by the cast.
Hitting the jackpot with Scandi-noir
Cameo, Edinburgh from Friday August 10, 2012, until Thursday August 23, 2012. More info: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow from Friday August 10, 2012, until Thursday August 23, 2012. More info: http://www.glasgowfilm.org/theatre/
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee from Friday August 24, 2012, until Thursday August 30, 2012. More info: www.dca.org.uk
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