Men & Chicken (2015)

Please don't spend money on this.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is dark comedy at its best. A macabre mix of Gothic squalor, perverted family values, hideously debased 'science' and above all, brutal but hilarious slapstick.Mads Mikkelsen's performance is outstanding but the entire cast is convincing, drawing you into their nightmare world.The setting is perfect, too – a crumbling mansion on a pancake-flat island possibly somewhere in the Kattegat and reached by a one-car ferry which only sails every few days.Despite the clowning, this film has greater depth which merits further viewing. The message is dark, satanic and disturbing – but we laugh at the pain.

The director's work, the scenes and all of the technical stuff was just fine in my opinion; the movie has all the usual ups and downs, we get our catharsis at the right spot, and I think in a certain level the plot is expectable. Yet it caused one of the best movie experience for me so far in it's genre. And why? Through the movie I didn't get any side-thoughts but after the cast I replayed the plot in my mind and I had to see that it raises really deep questions and problems: family values, ethics in science, exclusion, discrimination.Later I also figured out that all of the brothers have the same personalities as the animals whom DNA inside theirs. Of course it's really easy to find it out afterwards, but still funny to rethink the whole movie in the sense of this fact!

Anders Thomas Jensen has been known for spawning very creative stories, ones that are arguably designed for the absurd. Even if this is the case, there's an underlying genius to what he has created with 'Men and Chicken' (Mænd & høns). Whatever the idea might have been, it came together in the end perfectly.The story revolves around two brothers from Denmark who suffer from grotesque appearances and other mental issues that hinder them on a daily basis. While one brother, Gabriel, is a University professor who can't maintain a relationship, the other is the loose-cannon, Elias (phenomenally played by Mads Mikkelsen), who also has relationship issues and can't seem to go more than an hour without having to gratify himself.The brothers learn from their now deceased father that he was not their biological father, that the real one is a Geneticist who specializes in Stem Cell Research, fathered both men with different women, and that he resides on a remote island. While this excites Gabriel at first due to his assumptions that him and Elias could not be related, they embark on a journey that reveals their true family history. They find out that they have three other half-brothers who live on the remote island, and surprise surprise, they have similar features. While Elias is able to, say, communicate with the loners of the island in far less civilized methods, Gabriel attempts to help improve their ways of problem solving by talking and not by hilarious slapstick comedy beatings.It seems as if the story gets its inspiration from Kafka's 'The Metamorphisis'. So very "Kafka-esque" ('Mission Hill' reference). I'll let that idea sit with you. The film breaks the barriers of creativity in storytelling from both a comedic and dramatic perspective. It opens and closes as if reading a kids storybook, the musical score has a certain creepy feel to it, and the makeup and design all around was made to give the characters a worn down and dirty look that couldn't have possibly been any better.What was really fantastic about the film was despite the absurdity, the story really gelled into something of substance and quality. It told us that aren't able to choose our family, and that being different is the best thing in the world.The film ends on the note that every life -- be it creature or human, ugly or pretty, fat or skinny — is truly a small miracle. Things happen that are out of your control, and when you learn about what who you really are, it is possible to find comfort and acceptance. "For the very simple reason that life is life, and that the alternative is not preferable."

OK. Admittedly, I'm biased. I'm an enormous fan of Anders Thomas Jensen's movies and pretty much adore everything he's ever made or been even tangentially involved in, but up until now I was very firmly of the belief that 'Blinkende Lygter' was and would always remain my favourite of ATJ's movies. That was until I saw 'Mænd & Høns' and fell completely and traitorously in love.A perfect balance of black (oh god so so black) humour and pathos, this movie is a testament to ATJ's wonderfully deft touch with both. The characters, surreal and ridiculous as they are, are played with such humanity and conviction, that one cannot help but love them all, every last weird, disgusting one of them. As dual-lead, David Dencik is both loathsome and pathetically lovable as Gabriel. Nicolas Bro is a delight as always as the loquacious over-sharing Joseph, as is an almost unrecognisable Søren Malling as Franz. However, whereas it's normally Nicolaj Lie Haas that takes the comedic football and runs uncontested for the touchline, 'Mænd & Høns' is (definitely) Mads Mikkelsen's movie. As the compulsively masturbating, bombastic Elias, Mikkelsen reaps the lion's share of the comedic lines, delivering them with such incredible timing and bravado you can't help but think he missed his vocation when he opted for a career as leading-man heart-throb over bumbling idiotic funnyman.I can't say enough good about this film. Watch it as soon as a UK release is available. Talk about it until there is. Petition your local cinemas. Buy 'Mænd & høns' t-shirts and bore your friends. I know I will.