Showing @ Cineworld, Edinburgh Fri 20 & Fri 27 Jun

Hans Peter Moland / Norway / 2014 / 116 mins

This story of a vengeful snowplough operator taking on gangsters could easily have become Death Wish with snow boots. However director Hans Peter Moland keeps his tongue firmly in his cheek to give us a dry black comedy anchored by a wonderfully taciturn performance from Stellan Skarsgård. Nils Dickmann’s son is killed by gangsters who wrongly believe he has double crossed them. When Nils finds out, he seeks vengeance and so begins a quest that stains the pristine Norwegian snow with blood, and ratchets up an impressive body count.

There’s a smorgasbord of Scandinavian talent supporting Skarsgård including Borgen’s Birgitte Hjort Sørensen and Game of Throne’s Kristofer Hivju. And for added European flavour Bruno Ganz turns up as a Serbian gangster. The chief villain of the piece however is Pål Sverre Hagen as Greven a twitchy egotistical, racist and not very bright psychopath. Fighting a bitter custody battle whilst juggling his drugs empire, Dickmann’s vengeance is the last thing he needs. This is well trodden ground and fairly insubstantial fare, but the Norwegian scenery is a spectacular backdrop and it’s good to see Skarsgård in the role of an everyman. Plus the concept of a snowplough as a sword of justice gives the film points for originality.

Showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2014