Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Thomas Daneskov
Starring: Rasmus Bjerg, Zaki Youssef, Bjorn Sundquist, Sofie Grabol
Director Thomas Daneskov's second feature
Wild Men is a cousin of Taika Waititi's
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
and Jalmari Helander's
Big Game. Both those movies see a member of an ethnic minority team up with a
white woodsman as they are chased by various antagonists through a
sprawling forest, with each of the participants learning a lesson or two
about life from the other. Daneskov gives us a similar setup, pairing a
pelt-covered Dane with an Arab immigrant, but the dynamic is quite
different, as the former is no woodsman, simply a middle class man
suffering a mid-life crisis.
We meet Martin (Rasmus Bjerg) 10 days into his new life in the
wilds of Norway. At first he strikes an imposing figure, and you can see
why various characters will come to describe him as resembling a Viking.
But Martin is struggling to master this lifestyle and out of frustration
he finds himself drawing the attention of the local police after
stealing a horde of food and beer from a nearby petrol station.
Also pursued by the cops is Musa (Zaki Youssef), a cannabis
smuggler who retreats into the woods with a bag full of cash after
surviving a car crash he mistakenly believes has killed his dangerous
companions Simon (Marco Ilso) and Eigil (Tommy Karlsen).
When Martin stumbles across Musa he messily stitches up the nasty gash
in his leg and the two make their way towards the promise of a village
where people live off the land in the manner Martin has been attempting,
all while pursued by cops, gangsters and Martin's irate wife.
As Martin and Musa, Bjerg and Youssef make for an affable pair. They
form an instant bond, as while they may be from very different
backgrounds, they're both seeking a simpler life away from the stress of
modern urban living. Daneskov thankfully steers clear of any cringy
race-based comedy of the manner of Intouchables. Rather than trading their cultures, both Martin and Musa dismiss the
other's way of life as something they're uninterested in.
The trouble with Martin and Musa getting along so well from the start
is that it makes much of the movie dramatically inert. There's almost
none of the bickering that usually fuels this sort of buddy comedy and
so the conflict comes from those pursuing the pair. There's no real
tension generated from this as both the police and the gangsters are
portrayed as largely inept, so we rarely feel like our heroes are in any
real danger. When things do take a dark turn in the climax, it's a
jarring left turn, dropping the comedy for something closer to the final
act of Peter Weir's Witness.
What keeps Wild Men afloat are the various comic
vignettes involving our heroes and their pursuers. Most of the laughs
come courtesy of Bjorn Sundquist as the local aging Sheriff, who
pours disdain on the various lifestyles he encounters and fails to
comprehend (arriving at the "back to the land" commune he immediately
asks if the whole setup is for the purpose of sex). Martin has his
moments too, mostly through his frustration at his inability to escape
the modern world he thought he left behind in Denmark. At the
aforementioned commune, where grown men cosplay as Vikings, he is
disgusted when his offer to trade fur for food is greeted with a credit
card reader. There just aren't enough such moments for
Wild Men to be the sharp satire it initially
promises.
