La troisième vague

This is quite a fascinating movie. These days it came as add-on with TVmovie magazine (Germany), which lowers the threshold to get it for EUR 3.50.

It's documented as a Swedish/Finnish co-production. I didn't see a Finnish angle, but the Swedish is strong, even though the movie hardly ever plays in Sweden: the hero and family, as well as Rebecca the heroine, and Sellberg the short-lived commander, and the female officer in Göteborg, all come from there.

Action happens in UK, Netherlands, Germany, going south (from Swedish point of view) ever more. And going badder. "There's no place like home" (Sweden: for feeling secure, or burying commanders), and all other Europe is a battleground between toothless Europol and privatized security firm EuroSec (which in London has 20 times worth the equipment of City Police).

I felt scared by the seemingly uncontrollable powers of EuroSec (and their runaways). If this corporate security firm can overwhelm police, a fundamental concept breaks away. In the end, the bad guys lose. But will something like this happen again? You bet...

Certainly not a perfect movie, but very thought-provoking. The Munich riot was over-the-top, as mentioned before, but seems to get closer to the reality of EU/G8/... summits (rubber bullets are still only discussed, but not used by German police yet). I can at least recommend this to European viewers: a decent action movie with deeper context.

"The Third Wave" is a strong European action-thriller that can measure itself with almost every American production.

Organized crime is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in Europe and the newly appointed leader of the international police force Europol is determined to attack the criminals head on. Unfortunately he himself is killed when three professional hit men try to kill Rebecca, a young woman who had fled England to get away from her very powerful 'white collar' criminal husband. The Swedish inspector Johan Falk (a former colleague of the assassinated Europol-leader) witnesses the hit. He kills one of the hit men and flees the scene Rebecca. Now Johan, Rebecca and Johan's wife and daughter are in danger and because they don't know who to trust, their first priority is just to stay alive.

As said, "The Third Wave' is a good film for a broad audience. The story gave the filmmakers the opportunity to put in a lot of action and because of that, is has become a fast film that doesn't have any weak moments. There are 5 different languages involved, but (with subtitles)it doesn't feel like a foreign film. You won't be able to see it in theaters, so you'll have to look for it at your local videostore.

It's important to note, when looking at the reviews and comments on this movie, that nearly all of them were written more than a decade ago. At the time, news media and the entertainment industry were just waking up to the new crime waves from Eastern Europe, and speculations and predictions were wildly out of proportion. This movie is a good example of that, and while it probably seemed somewhat realistic at the time, watching it for the first time 12 years later means almost two hours of facepalming.

Another funny thing is that of this first trilogy of Johan Falk movies, only the first one holds up today. "Noll tolerans" was a tight, domestic thriller, and while suffering from some genre clichés, it could very nearly have been produced today. The next two, "Livvakterna" and this one, simply come across as sensationalist speculations run amok. Wildly inaccurate numbers and absurd conjecture are painfully present throughout. Yes, financial organized crime was and is of course a large and real international problem, but neither the European governments or society as we know it fell, as this movie would have us believe. If you're just getting into the Johan Falk movies, I'd recommend you watch the first one and then move on to the 2009 installments. This initial trilogy is in many ways a set of relatively well made thrillers, but their wildly distorted look at contemporary events come across as mostly embarrassing today.

The movie takes "organized crime" as topic and is very up to date. If you read Jean Ziegler's book (published 1998 in Geneva - I don't know the original or the English title), you know what the film is talking about. It is about the modern form of economics, the modern way to make money: by stealing taxes, using capital markets, tax havens, private police forces... the main "Baddie" studied at the London School of Economics. Obviously it was there where he learnt to make money by stealing power from the people or democratic governments, using corrupt banks and secret accounts.

The film uses the struggle of grassroots movements and NGO's as a background: the end of the film takes part WITHIN a demonstration against globalization, which takes place in Munich, the city of the REAL annual "NATO Security Conference" - annual demonstrations included. While the movie describes properly the mechanism of the modern capital markets - organized crime being a regular part of them - the Munich demonstrations are not shown correctly. I live nearby and watch them each year. There is much more police, which is armed heavier, and which is the only violent force on the streets, always being able to suppress any non-peaceful protest. Violent protest, as shown in the film, is not possible in Munich. During the Nato Conference, Munich seems to be a totalitarian Banana Republic. And there is absolutely no way to get near the conference hotels, if you are not invited. Believe me, the demonstrators try it each year...

But the capital markets are not affected. What the film is not telling you - as it is first and foremost an action movie: the problem are not certain human beings, who are criminals: the problem is the structure of the system (capital markets), which allows criminal behavior - which even DEMANDS criminal behavior to be successful. In this system you have to choose between having success or having moral values.

The top-budget Swedish movie of all time- "The third wave", with a budget of ~35 million SEK (errh some $4.5 million...) scores well for a Swedish action movie. It's predecessors is among the top of the later years' movies and "Third wave" continues the work of art. Jacob Eklund is as before excellent in his role as Johan Falk, we have a tight script and the plot is both interesting and somewhat applicable to reality. Of course there are some flaws, and the storyline gets a little messy at times, but overall I was very satisfied and I am happy that the capacity is there for making high-class movies although the budgets compared to US numbers are substantially smaller. it also proves that money does not equal quality. 8/10