Jackpot (2014)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Excellent but underrated film

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

There are shades of numerous other films in 's 'Jackpot' but most obviously, 'The Usual Suspects' comes to mind: an apparent innocent is the sole survivor of a mass killing, but is it possible he's just selling the police a shaggy dog story? But this movie lacks the class and mastery of indirection of that famous film: the in-plot police may get fooled, but there's no way the audience doesn't suspect. And (true or not) the story isn't very interesting - it has a kind of juvenile fascination with strip clubs, chopping up bodies, and scenes where everyone shoots everybody else simultaneously - I have seen good films about each of these things, but there's something a bit adolescent about sticking them together and calling it a movie. It's certainly a contrast to the normal mood of "Scandi-noir" - but not necessarily a good one.

JACKPOT is a Scandi-comedy, which is to say that it's dark and gruesome and quite funny. Winning the office lottery syndicate ought to be a good thing but for our hero it becomes something of a worry. You see, he runs a firm making Christmas trees...which employs only ex-cons trying to rehabilitate. With his three co-winners all being violent ex- offenders, it isn't long before they begin to realise that the fewer of them there are, the more money they'll each receive. Cue lots of black comedy as the incompetent four try to kill (or survive) each other. But what to do with all the corpses...? Then the cops get involved. If you enjoy black comedy with a happy ending (really...sort of) then you'll enjoy this.

I don't like gore but the gore is so cartoonish here it does not interfere with the fun. This film has everything.It has the basic convoluted crime story,unbelievably funny dialogue and great characterisation. There is nothing not to like in this film.The bad guys are well drawn and never given the outlandish lines that Tarentino gives them, they remain human, stupidly criminal and never the mere 'apes' that the police hero sees. I was a little thrown by the ending. I don't know how we were meant to judge the detective but of course it hardly matters. This shames Hollywood once again, just like Headhunters did. If you don't find this hilarious the fault is with you.

I was looking forward to Arme Riddere, told it was a crime story told in a Tarantino/Coen-stylish way. And it's good, though maybe not as funny as I thought it wood be. Still this is good entertainment, and well acted, and the story, based on a manuscript by Jo Nesbø, also has it's great outline. The filming technique is also well done.Well, what happens? Terrified and bloody, Oscar Svendsen awakes clinched to a shotgun in a strippers joint. Around him 8 dead men, and police aiming at him. To Oscar it's clear that he is innocent. It all started when four chaps won 1,7 million on the pools...The film starts off with meeting the main characters, Oscar and the detective, slowly starting to believe Oscars' story about him and his three criminal friends.I goes wrong from the start. And is it really a good idea playing the pools which three inmates trying to get back in real life? Of course not. And from ten on the story gets bloody. Too bloody for Norways' biggest newspaper, which said it was impossible to review. It's not, and this statement is just silly. As most other Norwegian reviewers have stated later on.This is hardly a comedy, though there are some good laughs tucked in the story. The story is sick and twisted, but not worse that it could actually have happened in that kind of wrong environment.Arme Riddere is good fun, but lacks the quality of a classic. May this is because it's not drawing the line completely out. Tt's not really a crime story, not really a comedy, a.s.o. But if you're not afraid of some gore, I think you'll have a really good time watching this.