The Last Viking film review: Funny and imaginative Danish dramedy
A starry Danish cast and madcap script create hilarious and touching results in The Last Viking, says Emma Simmonds
Some of Denmark’s most internationally recognisable actors assemble for an extraordinarily silly and often screamingly funny dramedy. This imaginatively conceived effort brings together armed robbery, mental illness, Vikings and Beatlemania in a (somehow coherent) story about sibling responsibility and self-acceptance.
The Last Viking is the reliably bonkers brainchild of Anders Thomas Jensen, who was a 1998 Oscar winner for his short Election Night, assembling a number of the filmmaker’s previous collaborators, including Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and The Killing star and knitwear queen Sofie Gråbøl. The film introduces us to armed robber Anker (Kaas) who is arrested at the outset. Before being captured, Anker entrusts his mentally fragile brother Manfred (Mikkelsen) with the key to a locker containing 20 million krone, asking him to retrieve the money and bury it near their childhood home.
After his release 15 years later, Anker learns that Manfred’s mental health has deteriorated; he has developed a habit of stealing dogs and has started to identify as deceased Beatles legend John Lennon. Following a pair of spectacularly abrupt suicide attempts, Manfred is admitted to a secure unit where he’s diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Realising that Manfred may not be able to lead him to the loot in his current condition, Anker despairs.
However, after a night partying with psychiatrist Lothar (Lars Brygmann), it’s suggested that by altering reality to match Manfred’s delusion he might well be reached. He manages to track down a patient at another facility who believes he is Ringo Starr, and one in Sweden (Kardo Razzazi’s Hamdan) who alternates between the personalities of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, alongside 40 others (including Heinrich Himmler, Iron Man and Björn from ABBA).
And so they get the band back together, after a fashion, at Anker and Manfred’s former family home, now rented out by bickering couple Margrethe and Werner (Gråbøl and Søren Malling). Complicating matters, the place holds traumatic memories relating to the siblings’ abusive father. They are also being pursued by Flemming, a former criminal associate of Anker’s (played by another regular Jensen collaborator, Nicolas Bro, who makes a genuinely menacing bad guy).
Mikkelsen is among the finest actors of his generation (highlights include his Cannes-winning performance in The Hunt and Bafta-nominated turn in Another Round, while he’s also appeared in both the MCU and Wizarding World). His ongoing collaborations with Jensen have continued to delight by delivering heartily on the fun factor. This is their sixth film together (following Riders Of Justice, Men & Chicken, Adam’s Apples, The Green Butchers and Flickering Lights), with Mikkelsen previously assuming the roles of vengeful soldier, chronic masturbator, priest, cannibal butcher and small-time gangster.
As you can probably tell, The Last Viking is not an especially sensitive film about mental illness, taking as it does a blackly comic, frequently bad taste and exuberantly eccentric approach to much of what unfolds (the slapstick nature of Manfred’s suicide attempts, for instance). Beyond the delightfully deranged premise and cast of quirky characters, it is chock full of fantastic lines, whether it’s Lothar wondering ‘how can a mute snore like that?’ or describing how Hamdan’s Himmler persona ‘got them in trouble on the ferry’.
And yet, for all its hilarity, this is a story underpinned by real emotion as the brothers confront their past while their obligations toward each other are explored. Jeppe Kaas’ score, too, is elegant and elevating, and there are a pair of sincere, wholly convincing performances at the film’s heart. Nikolaj Lie Kaas (best known for the Department Q Danish film series) somehow manages to turn his traditional granite-faced bemusement up to 11, while Mikkelsen conveys Manfred’s internal anguish in beautifully subtle fashion.
And the film is bookended by suitably batshit, amusingly animated sequences which affirm its message of equality and evoke Danish mythology, but with a typically Jensen-ian twist. The Last Viking is a story about the suffocating bonds of family and the multitudinous nature of identity, and how this can be shaped by the perception of others. It is also, in its own way, a celebration of difference and of finding the courage to be yourself, whatever magnificent madness that entails.
The Last Viking is in cinemas from Friday 26 June.