Storm (2005)

Too many fans seem to be blown away

This is How Movies Should Be Made

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

In "Storm" we have our slacker-hero, DD, who is introduced to us in a humorous way. There is nothing special about him, or so it seems.The adventure begins when he encounters a mysterious heroine, who constantly fights off mysterious thugs. There is a supernatural action movie element going through the narrative leading to the reveal of a big secret/twist.Starting off as lighthearted comedic action entertainment, the story takes an 180 degree turn into the psychological drama direction, which can either elevate or ruin the story for the viewers. The somewhat inconsistent tone made me care less about the supporting characters but ended up elevating and fleshing-out the protagonist from a funny caricature to a man with depth.It was an interesting movie, I suggest giving it a chance knowing as little as possible about the story.

The film begins like a cheap imitation of fast and violent action films, but there's more than that. A fairly normal guy gets involved in some crime/espionage/something else, and you think you know what happens then, but you guess wrong.It takes some time to figure out what is going on, just like the main character is rather lost for a while. There is something extremely valuable involved in the box that the beginning revolves around. You won't like everything you'll see in the film (or you're rather perverted if you do), but you'll understand at the end. (Oh, and if you understand the end, please tell me.)

Stockholm urban loner "DD" finds his semi-yuppiesh existence in a tug-of-war between other-dimensional individuals — both good and bad. A Nordic "The Matrix" light? Not quite; the sci-fi hype or the "world is at stake"-story on a grand scale (as its trailers really hinted) slowly give way to something else. Sure, we have many urban fantasy elements with its comic book-flirts, stylistics and tongue-in-cheek-cheesy characters (and so-so effects). But these are just peripheral disguises. Filmmakers Mårlind/Stein actually open the emotional window on a psychologically personal level here, as the main core of the film unfolds. So the strongest reason to enjoy this movie is not its action or thriller bits. It's the moody, harrowing midsection of DD facing his childhood demons of guilt in his hometown — that is an unforgettable and visually stunning nightmare that would give even Ingmar Bergman cold shivers.This ambitious film-making team created something great with the formidable TV-series "De drabbade" a few years back. Let's hope they still have more to come within the Swedish cinema industry- it's much needed!6 out of 10 from Ozjeppe

I just got home from the world premiere of this movie, and this is the first time I have seen a Swedish action movie with sci-fi elements that does not come off as quaint or just outright bad. This is a very smart movie that, while all you see is not fully explained, the right things are, and it manages to weave different parts of the story together quite nicely.There is realism and depth (and pain!) in the psychological side of the movie, and I particularly like how the characters evolve over time - the storytelling technique works very well.I also like Jonas Karlsson's acting - his character could easily have become cliché or cheesy (there is something with Swedish that just isn't as cool as English, when doing this type of movie), but he avoids these traps and pulls it off with class. In general the acting, in its genre, is better than most Swedish movies that try to be this cool. Because Storm is cool.I heard this movie being put forward as a "Swedish Matrix", and while the two movies differ quite a lot, and the Matrix obviously had a much bigger budget, the comparison is not completely unwarranted since they both tell parallel stories in clever ways and play with our perception of what a normal life is. Storm tells its tale on a much more personal scale, and it does it excellently.