Clash of Egos (2006)

Did you people see the same film I saw?

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

CLASH OF EGOS (Tomas Villum Jensen - Denmark 2006).This Danish comedy certainly did well at the IFF Rotterdam, where it played in a sold-out theater before roughly a thousand people, with most of the audience screaming with laughter during most of the film.Written by Anders Thomas Jensen, already responsible for a number of hits in Danish cinema, "Clash of Egos" is about Tonny, a short-tempered divorced father who has just served a sentence for acts of violence. Eager to do well, he gets a job at some kind of recycling business and is rewarded a few hours with his two kids every month. During one of these visits, he decides to take them to the movies to see the latest Harry Potter, but it's sold out. The only tickets available are for the latest masterpiece "The Murderer" by the critically acclaimed Danish director Claus Volter, a film - so we learn later - with the all-time low attendance record in Danish cinema of seven sold tickets; "Three in Kopenhagen, three in Arhus and one in Odense", despite being overladen with praise by the critics. When his daughter starts crying during the film, he demands his 473 Kronen back from the theater manager. When this doesn't work, he tries to get his money back from the director himself. When trying to confront Volter during his latest shoot, Tonny makes a bit of a tumble from a scaffolding after a struggle with Volter and ends up in hospital. Now he wants compensation, not in the form of money, but to have the right to be co-director and co-writer of Volkers latest film. Essentially, he really wants to make a film his children would enjoy. Of course, the two men's ideas about film clash with sometimes hysterical results.Some of the pokes at pretentious art-house filmmakers are perhaps a bit too easy and many of the secondary parts consists of little more than blatant stereotypes, but it's all very funny. I was laughing almost constantly during the second half of the film (as did the entire theater) and the two leading roles are in very good hands with Ulrich Thomsen as Tonny and Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Claus Volker. I've never seen Thomsen in a comic role (actually, I've seen him only once, in "Festen") but he manages extremely well and has an almost perfect comic timing. Typically the kind of film - once things start rolling - where almost every situation becomes outright hilarious, for which much of the credit must go to Anders Thomas Jensen, who knows how to write intelligent comedy AND tell a story in 90 minutes. There are not many contemporary writers in Europe who can do this. A great success.Camera Obscura --- 8/10

I don't recall watching any movie as offensive as this one, ever before. Not because of sex or violence since 'Sprængfarlig Bombe' really doesn't contain any of that, but because it's an 1½ hour long monologue against everything I love about movies.The bad guy of the movie is fictional director Claus Volker (with the "V" pronounced like in "von Trier") who looks like a clone of Christoffer Boe. Sprængfarlig starts off with an intentionally terrible pseudo-artistic movie by Volker about a guy working at an oil rig like in 'Breaking the Waves', and rest of the movie is filled with similar spoofs.Throughout the entire movie Claus Volker and the directors he is supposed to resemble are made fun of in almost every way possible. Only 7 people come to see his new movie; he is very egoistic and every time he gets frustrated, he runs to the corner of the room and screams like a wild monkey for half a minute. All "artistic" movies are ridiculed because, according to 'Sprængfarlig', no one wants to see them anyway. There is a "funny" joke about the Verfremdungseffekt and even 'Un Chien Andalou' is mentioned.Most people though will not notice that but instead just talk about how funny the movie is. The humor in 'Sprængfarlig' is similar to the other Danish action comedies, just with a slightly higher amount of slapstick, so even though it's a meta movie, it doesn't fall prey to it's own charges since it completely avoids being "artistic." Since I like the movies that director Thomas Villum Jensen ridicules in 'Sprængfarlig,' I was somehow offended by the movie. But on the other side I couldn't help being amazed by the stupidity of this movie and its morale about movies not appealing to the common Dane not deserving any economic support. I was overwhelmed.If you love "artistic" movies and have enough irony or if you just like light weight action comedies like "I Kina spiser de grønne slagtere i nye biler med blinkende lygter," you will probably enjoy 'Sprængfarlig.' I certainly did even though it was a very ambivalent experience.

O' my god, what an excellent movie!!! I haven't laugh this much in a very long time! Ulrich Thomsen just play his character to perfection! In his world, everything is so simple, and that is just so funny, that you cant do anything else, than love him. And Nickolai lie Kass plays a spoiled instructor who reminds so much of the danish dorme instructor, Von Trier, and not on the god way, if you know what i mean ;)Just go and see it! Adams æbler isn't near as funny a this movie!!! I don't think that danish film branch has made a movie before whit such a perfect characters as in this movie. I am very impressed!!! If I could give this movie more than 10 stars, I definitely did, because it deserves every credits that it can gets! Love it, love it, love it :-)