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At World's End (Film)
Rating: M
Running Time: 95
Country: Denmark
Director: Tomas Villum Jensen
Cast: Steven Berkoff, Steven Berkoff, Bille Brown, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen
Distributor: Film
Release Date: August 12, 2010 Melbourne
Film Worth: $10.00
FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worthWhile this film has an oddball charm, it never adds up to a satisfying whole and eventually slides into silliness.
This curious Danish co-production is like the poorer - but more interesting - cousin of the Hollywood action comedy. It has the implausible storyline, the obligatory romance plus the ever-increasing body count. There's even a moment of toilet humour (that is actually so funny that you'd have to be made of stone not to laugh).
The well-paced plot sees awkward psychiatrist, Adrian (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), head from Denmark to Indonesia to determine the sanity level of Severin (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a Danish national who's been charged with murder and reckons that he's found eternal youth via the mysterious properties of a jungle flower. The allegedly 129-year-old Severin, who looks thirty-something, brings Adrian and his lovely assistant, Beate (Birgitte Hjort Sorensen), to the edge of an international incident as one kooky and/or violent event follows another.
Kaas and Sorensen won't win any acting awards, but they're highly likeable and amusing, and the film has an oddball charm...yet it doesn't add up to a satisfying whole. There are a couple of comments made to or about Indonesian characters that don't sit well, plus the incongruously jarring murder of an innocent civilian in what's supposed to be a light-hearted caper.
Although largely shot in Queensland on The Gold Coast hinterland, the filmmakers are blind to the splendid scenery, and the action scenes are like something you might have watched on TV after school in the seventies or eighties. There's no exploration of the flower-of-youth idea either, and the corny soundtrack doesn't help.
The laughs subside as the film progresses, but there's still fun to be had in the third act, plus a memorable piece of fireside philosophising. At World's End has humour and promise, yet it eventually slides into Tinseltown silliness. It is, however, fairly unpredictable, and succeeds in holding your interest - unlike its big budget Hollywood cousins.
