Opération Arctic Fox

I wish I had read some review of this movie before I bought it on Blu-ray. Boy, what a waste of good money!

As a previous reviewer stated, I really was looking forward to a Swedish war movie. Perhaps the first of its kind to be made. As a Swede who have only heard my dad speak vaguely about what it was like to live in Sweden during the German occupation of Norway, I was looking for some portrayal of what it was like. As well as some good old-fashioned action of course!

However, I can only agree with previous reviewer that the characters acted so amateurishly and so unconvincingly stupid that I ended up swearing to myself during the whole movie. They must have slept right through their entire basic training. A seven-year-old who had played any computer war game would have picked them off one by one.

As an example: Who would be stupid enough, when pursued by German patrols in a foreign, occupied country, to light a fire in a cabin's fireplace and a number of kerosene lamps without shading the windows? Not posting any guard outside to warn of approaching enemy soldiers or even having their firearms within easy reach? They don't event seem vigilant but seem to be writing postcards. One guy even goes to the privy without his gun or helmet.

At the end, I almost stood up and applauded when a Swede got shot. I know it sounds horrible to say, but boy, these guys sure had it coming for being so unforgivably stupid as to put the whole country to shame. I hope nobody outside the country watches this or we will be the laughing-stock of the planet for years to come.

Coming from not only a nation (Norway) which has a lot of heroes connected to the second world war, but also a world re-known town from where some world famous saboteurs came from (Rjukan)h, it's interesting to see a movie from the Swedish side.

They were equally young to the Swedes here, those local schoolboys and students which later one became famous as saboteurs. You saw some of them in the films Max Manus and The Heavy Water Sabotage. I personally got to know a couple of them, amongst them Gunnar "Kjakan" Sønstsbø, which was Norways most decorated war heroes, and a main person in the spiderweb of sabotage actions which made the war difficult for the occupiers during the war. And my father very secretly brought food up to saboteurs hiding in the mountains, waiting for the right time to hit. This was so secret that I didn't get to know this until many years after his death, by strangers which knew my dad.

Sweden has been a peaceful nation, and their neutrality during the WW2 is well known, but we've heard very little on their war history. This film tells a bit about the nervousness the Swedes felt even though they chose not to take sides during the war. Norway wasn't at all ready to fight against the German war machine, nor where the Danes or most other nation attacked and occupied during the war. Still there sprung heroes out of the war. They started off as young and stupid, but still with some courage and luck, which in some years made them both experienced and later on heroes.

This movie shows how naive the Swedes where, when they went from peaceful Sweden into wartime Norway on silly missions. They weren't at all prepared for what they met. Many Nowegian soldiers died the same way, without becoming either known or heroes. This film could as much as being about Swedes have been about Nowegians, or Finns. We get to see the experienced Finn in action here. He had learned how fights were won during the Finnish winter war. Therefore he was better able to deal with the horrors of war.

Though this film had some troubles establishing our sympathy for the characters in the first hour, it manages to do so in the last hour, when the severeness has caught both them and us as viewers.

This war film is more about the traumas of war than about the war. I found the film fascinating for more tan one reason. I also found he film honest and no extra hero bullshit, just plain true and raw realism. That there's a drama at the end I found refreshing. It was actions like that which made the war hell for Germans in Norway. Impossible to know where and when they would occur, but many felt obliged to do what they could to make it difficult for the occupiers.

A review here thought the Germans where cliché fully horrible here, but torture and nastiness was no stranger to the occupiers. This was how they got to know about hideouts and saboteurs. This was a very real war.

A good movie, which could have had a better start than it did.

This is actually really bad. Richard Holm is just not up to for what this film wants to be. Look at some native Norwegian movies on the same subject and I think you'll find many that are pretty good and this one to be drivel in comparison.

Acting is stiff and over the top at the same time, the drama is laughable and the story could have been made into something interesting, but isn't.

While we Swedes have too endure boring drama films and drama films that pretends to be comedies it's always fun when something unusual pops up. Gränsen or Beyond the Border is one of these films. It follows a realistic and very possible concept of bored Swedish soldiers wanting to see some action and sneaks over the border to Nazi-occupied Norway.

For those who don't know, Sweden was one of the few unoccupied democracies left i Europe and everybody where expecting Germany to attack any minute. A couple of fresh recruits skies across the border and stumbles into the execution of a Norwegian rebel. In panic they open fire at the Nazi's and are captured.

One of the soldier's brother goes after him along with the stereotypical finish madman/bad-ass and two other Swedish soldiers. A Swedish colonel who is responsible for the soldiers send two marksmen after them to clean it up so he won't be held responsible.

There is a lot of heavy war violence, mostly hand to hand combat that end up in gory stabbings. It's in no way tame and one is very disturbing to see. There are some brief shootouts, the budget won't allow more thus we got stabbings instead. We are also treated with some very suspenseful scenes where our Swedish heroes tries to not be seen by the Nazis.

The end shootout is probably the coolest in a Swedish film and it ends with one of the most haunting, beautiful and horrific images ever put in a Swedish film. It's also interesting to note that the good guys in the end are made up of one Swede, one Finne and and one Norwegian. At some points in history these nations have been one and the same and now they team up against the Nazis. It's a pretty fun little trivia if you know your history.

In the end, Gränsen is a very entertaining Swedish film, I it's not too special from other war films save for that haunting image I mentioned but is worth checking out. More Swedish films like this please.

It's not terribly bad, but it's far from good either. It doesn't have much of a story. You also don't feel anything for the people involved, you get far too little character development to feel anything for them. I also get the feeling throughout the film that it's not real, which of course it isn't since it's a film, but a war film that's supposed to be realistic, you want to get the feeling of authenticity, but you don't get that here. There are also a lot of choices made by the characters that don't feel believable and also quite stupid.

A lot also feels illogical, why some characters want to kill another even though they're on the same side for example.

The Swedes feel stupid and naive, the Finns or the Finn are of course supposed to be the tough one, but you don't buy it. The Germans feel extremely stereotypical Nazis.

I think there's a lot that's wrong, the script is quite thin, the acting is uneven, and some actors don't feel like they fit the roles. But above all, it's probably a directing problem.

It's a shame because it could be an interesting story to tell, about the Swedes who guarded the border with Norway, where smuggling occurred, but also help to the Norwegian resistance movement, espionage, etc.