La calda neve

Altough "Het Snö" (Hot Snow) is probably the first drug thriller from Sweden and has a cast to die for, it's one of the biggest let-downs I've ever seen.

The story's confusing and the actors are working so hard to bring any sense to it that it just gets worse. Ernst-Hugo Järegård character, drug-lord Stenhäll, is like a cliché of every madmen he later would come to play on screen. And Sven Bertil Taube as international playboy Bobby Flyckt is mere a parody of Roger Moore in "The Persuaders" and, strange enough, a precursor for Moore's blasé interpretation of James Bond. Taube's always good, but if you want to see him as jaded cop/crook cross, Geoffrey Reeve's underrated take spy film "Puppet On A Chain" from 1971.

There's some bright spots to "Het Snö", though. The pictorial language is splendid and resembles some of the great French thrillers of the '60s, but all in all it's miles and miles away from the brilliance of "The Big Risk", "The Finger Man", "The Godson" and "Pasha".