Comando 007

This Sweden-Norway co-production begins when Carl Hamilton (Peter Stormare) is assigned the dangerous mission to chase Russian gunrunners . Hamilton reunites a command formed by five tough soldiers . They are parachuted into Russian tundra where meet the smugglers and a nuclear missile SS,20, 1,5 megatons . It leads to Mursmank (Russian), there resides Hawkins (Mark Hamill), he formerly served in Vietnam and Fertile Crescent, today is a cunning manager whose 11 employees were the smugglers . Then , Hamilton goes to Lybian desert where encounters the baddies's base . Meanwhile , his wife (Lena Olin) is kidnapped in his mansion of Stenhara but Hamilton goes on the attack on the headquarter .

The film displays suspense , action-packed , thriller , violence and is quite entertaining . The highlights of the film are the impressive beginning with creepy execution including gore and a breathtaking final attack with fighting , pursuits and explosions . The base took several months to build and nearly 60,000 $ worth of damage was done when it was blown apart . This is an adaptation from TV series about Carl Hamilton and his assignments for Swedish government , filmed with high budget and Swedish players , such as Peter Stormare (Prison break , Fargo) , an usual nasty here turned into a cold action hero , American actors as Mark Hamill (Star Wars) as an exaggerated villain and Terry Carter (Galactica) ; furthermore a gorgeous Swedish , Lena Olin (Ninth gate, Chocolat, Unbearable lightness of being ). Rating : Entertaining and well worth watching.

People, you gotta see this! This is an excellent movie, wonderfully directed by the Norwegian director Harald Zwart, and incredible acting from pretty much everybody, especially Peter Stormare, Mark Hamill and Lena Olin. This has everything. Great special effects, but not too many, an intriguing plot and the thrills that keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the movie. I loved it, must be one of the best action movies I've seen.

I think this movie shows a positive development in the movie industry in Scandinavia. It`s a brilliant action-film, with many elements that Hollywood wouldn`t accept (read: chainsaw-scenes). Peter Stormare is excellent and the best of the Hamiltons` that have appeared on celluloid. It has many different scenes and locations from Morocco to the Russian tundra and is a multi-international adventure. Jan Guillou is a very good writer and this is a fine product of two of his books (Ingenmans land and Sista Segern). See it, and make up your own mind.

This film just doesn't work. No two ways about it. I saw it for the first time back in '98 when it was released and I didn't like it. I just bought it on sale a couple of days ago, 'cause I thought "whatta hell, I'll give it a try". I don't regret for the money I put out for Hamilton, but the fact remained the same.. this movie is pointless, dull and uninteresting.

Stormare is usually a delight, but that's when he's making films in the US. Back home he doesn't do the trick. Sure the movie is well made (if you forget the odd stock footage here'n'there), but in the end the only thing that REALLY lifts Hamilton above one star garbage, is Hamill's turn as the bad guy Hawkins. He seriously has fun with the character and is also responsible for the only two good moments in the movie.. "Swedish intelligence, huh? Now there's a contradiction in terms" and when he allows Hamilton to have a word or two with his wife over the phone towards the end of the flick. And that's really pretty much it.

** / *****

Although 'Hamilton' is a rather good action movie it does lack the interesting details from the original books; "Ingenmansland" and "Den Enda Segern". The books don't include all the action in the movie. The action-sequences in the books are actually only a very small fraction of the whole story. The movie actually differs so much from the books that it will be hard to make more movies from the Hamilton book series...