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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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In A Better World (Film)

by Joshua Blackman | March 28, 2011 12:51 | Edited March 28, 2011 12:53

While the ending may be resolved too neatly, this elegant and superbly performed work explores its powerful themes with a searing honesty.

It's a curiosity that the Danish director Susanne Bier (After The Wedding, Brothers, Open Hearts) - one of the filmmakers associated with Lars Von Trier's Dogme movement - is acclaimed by Hollywood but derided by her homeland critics as being "too commercial." Her Oscar winning In A Better World only suffers from this largely unjust criticism in its final reel, which ties its affecting story of family and violence up into too neat a bow. Otherwise, the film displays Bier's trademark honesty and emotional realism.

The film is split into two complementing segments. The first is set in an African refugee camp, and sees Danish doctor Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) in a moral quandary over whether to treat a barbaric local thug. The other, more substantial, half has Anton's bullied twelve-year old son, Elias (Markus Rygaard), fall under the spell of the borderline sociopathic Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen), a schoolmate who hatches vengeful plots to distract himself from his inability to deal with the death of his mother.

Bier, working from a script from regular writing partner Anders Thomas Jensen, draws parallels between the life-and-death nature of everyday existence in the third world and the violence underpinning an otherwise idyllic Danish town. What is the correct response to aggressive, immoral behaviour? Anton's heroic stoicism? Or vengeful retaliation? Like Steven Spielberg's Munich, In A Better World sensibly side-steps direct answers to those questions.

 

It is foremost an intense melodrama, bolstered by a superb performance from Mikael Persbrandt (Everlasting Moments), who conveys so much wordless strength and humanity as the charismatic Anton. It's hard to remember a character from any recent movie that's so heroically strong-willed, even though he too is ultimately not immune to the oppressive violence that confronts him.

 

Elegant and powerful, Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, In A Better World may not fully follow through on its thematic ideas, but it's a strong example of Bier's nuanced depiction of human relationships.