The Marksman

Steen is a journalist, who in a television show admits that it may be necessary to use force when keeping Denmark a nuclear-free zone (back in 1976, a very hot topic). Okking misinterprets his message and starts shooting people to prove his point, wasting dogs, old ladies and celebrities. Sadly, the film´s message about environmental issues is so heavyhanded, and leading actor Steen´s performance so poor, that the film fails, surviving only on Okking´s strong performance as the determined killer. Some effective shocks on the way, but the police investigation doesn´t add to the excitement. Best bit has Okking shooting then national soccer player Allan Simonsen.

The idea and the plot of this movie is certainly new and exciting. A nuclear power station is being constructed after being approved of by the public at an election. A journalist mentions in a TV interview that he finds physical violence an acceptable mean to stop this same construction. This spurs a local fruitcake into action with his rifle. The rest should not be revealed here. The story is exciting all the way and by today, Danes will find it very interesting to see how Copenhagen looked in the mid 70's.

What makes this movie not so brilliant is a certain actress' embarrassing performance. I'm talking about Pia Maria Wohlert as the wife of troubled journalist Niels Winther. Basically every time she opens her mouth, it makes your toes curl, and I have no hesitation in declaring her performance the poorest I've ever seen by an actor/actress. In fact, it is so feeble that it spoils the scenes that she appears in, and unfortunately, she appears quite a lot :-(. One has to wonder why directors Franz Ernst and Tom Hedegaard went along with her, not to mention how she made it past even the most initial of screen tests. My guess is that they did not HAVE screen tests for this film.

Apart from this horrible performance, I find this movie very enjoyable, and a lot of very good and experienced actors appear in it, including Jens Okking as the loon, Ebbe Langberg as the chief of police, Per Pallesen as one of the police detectives, the always wonderful Bjørn Puggaard-Müller as a journalist and Poul Glargaard in an unusual little cameo.

7/10, because apart from one or two dodgy actors, the film is exciting and it also paints a very accurate picture of what Denmark looked like in the mid 70s.