Livvakterna

This movie is the second of a trilogy. It's about Johan Falk a Swedish police officer. His friend gets caught in a situation with organized crime takin' over companies. And Johan comes to the rescue. This is a high speed action movie from beginning to end. And you won't be disappointed by it. The other movies are "Noll Tollerans"(Zero tolerance) and "Tredje vågen" (the Third wave).

This film is the best Swedish movie that I have seen, its different than other films. The movie is "seen" from another point of view, its not the harassed family´s view but an old friend´s that is a tuff cop that is trying to help the family.

"Livvakterna" is a film that is thrilling from the beginning to the end, its also cool sometimes and it has the best car chase that I have seen in a film - in a Swedish forest road. It has also (as do many successful films) some humor.The film is not that violent ither except for the opening scene. This is a quality film that I just have to recommend.

After having been almost physically persuaded to see this movie (I don´t see Swedish movies anymore, they usually put my teeth on edge), I was extremely surprised by "Livvakterna". This and it´s predecessor "Noll Tolerans"(made by the same people, has the same main character) are most probably the only Swedish action thrillers to actually deserve that denomination.

An introvert, hard boiled, cop goes to the funeral of his friend´s father, and gets involved in a yarn of extortion, blackmail and murder. The action scenes are realistic, nothing fancy, the characters believable, and most of all, the cinematography is excellent. A car chase through a Swedish forest will go down in history as a modern classic, and the director made good use of cut and sound to highten the suspence. And believe me, towards the end I found myself biting my fingernails to the quick!

All in all, the best in its genre to come out of Sweden in a long time, and I hope that this movie sets a standard!

Usually Swedish action movies are worse than an American C-class action. In movies like the two latest Hamilton movies (Vendetta and Hamilton) the action mainly consists of car explosions and gunfights that even the worst of American action would match.

Livvakterna does not fall into this trap, to my delight there isn't one single car explosion. Sure, there are some gunfight but to me they feel real, the characters feels real, the script feels real... basically, it's a very good movie.

A Swedish action flick that actually works? Is that possible? Well, this movie _almost_ works. While the last twenty minutes or so of Livvakterna are very suspenseful and full of action, the 1.5 hours leading up to those minutes are merely okay. The scene where Krister Henriksson's character explains the first, second, and third crime waves is actually incredibly bad, almost embarrassing to have to watch. The acting? For the most part the acting is better than one might expect from an ordinary action movie, but some performances are not very good at all. However, Livvakterna is rather entertaining, and the last twenty minutes are quite good so I'll give this film a 5 out of 10. If you ask me, I'd say that the director's first movie -- Noll tolerans -- was better than this one.