Northwest

A nice story of small gangsters trying to stay above water. The relationships in this and the characters are well drawn and avoid getting into too many cliché traps. The movie/script is well written too of course, but it is the actors who carry the weight. It's tough playing off each other and making the audience buy that.

I doubt this will be your first venture into crime story foray, but if you have a knack for European style of showing things (read: not as fancy as a Hollywood Blockbuster would show them), you will really relish watching this. There is violence and there is many adult situations happening, so you should be fine with watching that. If that is the case, there is a more than decent movie to enjoy here

I love realistic drama, and the creators of this film maintained the illusion of watching a good documentary, without commentary, but delivering slamming meaning, and meanings, just the same. The proliferation of single mothers raising a family is a bane to society, and young men growing up to think being silent and emotionless is the means to self actualization leads toward the fall.

I could identify with Casper immediately, even being female, and not a burglar. I did not see him as a criminal but one who is flailing in existential angst with no hope of a future to get ahead.

If he had had a Tiger mom, and along with all the other siblings had been made to study, instead of playing video games, and play hooky from school with impunity, there would not have been a movie. The mother is depicted as gentle, not crass, loving, but not having the means to discipline her brew.

Casper's downfall is his ultimate sense of decency his younger brother does not have, and him I see as a criminal mind, a psychopathic personality who can't keep from bragging, and betrays his brother who made the mistake of coming back to help him.

I really felt badly for the gals who were treated as chattel sex toys. Though I have never been in their position either, my heart cries out to all women who end up in such desperate, and deplorable conditions which only result in ultimate abandonment and downfall,symbolized by the hapless gal who gets shot and is immediately just shuffled off, and we are pretty sure it is not to a hospital.

The frightening rise of kids being conceived out of wedlock and raised by single mothers or because of divorce, is not a good sign for the continued polarization of our society between the haves and the have-nots. We not only need more tiger moms, but tiger dads.

Really enjoyed this film.Good actors and story.Worth watching if you fancy something different from usual Hollywood action film

This movie relates the story of a young man living in a modest suburb in Denmark. Skilled burglar, he will try to rise the grade of the criminal underworld, underestimating the dangerousness of the consequences of his acts. Far from Hollywood gangster movies, the way this movie was recorded, the scenery as well as the actor's performances plunge the viewer into a deeply realistic violence. Interestingly, the film maker (Michael Noer) succeeded in showing a violence that will knot your stomach without being gore at all which is very rare nowadays. An excellent movie, in the direct line of Gomorra (Matteo Garrone), in a radically different geographical situation.

Casper, our main character earns a living by skillfully breaking into peoples homes and sell the stolen goods to the local receiver (Jamal).

He doesn´t get any respect from Jamal and his men, he is humiliated and it seems that he doesn´t get fair prizes for the goods he has stolen. So one day he is approached by a stranger, that makes a proposition. You get the feeling that Casper senses danger, as well as we does for that matter, as he does not accept the proposition in the first place but later he changes his mind and then the real drama can begin.

The stranger is a guy named Bjørn who is involved in organized crime. He has a brothel (this is usually Hells Angels in Denmark) and needs somebody to handle transport, security and economy and slowly, no, very fast as a matter of fact, is Casper in charge of these assignments. Casper wants to be involved but at the same time we get a very clear notion, that at a certain point he cannot pull out without problems. He is slowly losing control over his own life.

When the old receiver sends out his guys to get Casper back into his old business a conflict of interests has started that can only be ended in one way...... Casper is together with his kid brother brought out into a forest and taught how to use a gun. By the instructions given you get a very, very clear notion that an execution is going to take place.

It´s rare to watch social drama wherein everybody doesn´t stand out on some pathology scale. Casper and the rest of his family doesn´t stand out as sociopaths or having a drug/alcohol addiction. Casper is very affectionate towards his little sister and really seems resourceful here. The mother isn´t introduced much but there is nothing that stand out as suspicious.

So the big question - why does Casper and his brother get involved in criminal activities? Well, the explanation cannot be found within the family so instead....? Its the simple fact of growing up in Northvest - or a ghetto for that matter. Its a society within the society governed by its own laws. The mother knows what is going on - suddenly he wears a Rolex watch and it is as if she wants to have a conversation about this but in the same moment gives up. Alone she cannot fight and win the battle to get Casper back on track.

The pace of the story, the portrait of the characters and the description of the milieu in "nortvest" is put very well together in this movie.

A small masterpiece....

/Simon

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