Real-life brothers Gustav and Oscar Dyekjaer Giese play teenage siblings in Michael Noer’s (R, 2010) tough Danish crime drama.
Set against the backdrop of the impoverished multi-ethnic Copenhagen suburb of Nordvest, eighteen year-old Caspar (Gustav Dyekjær Giese) is a thief who fences his stolen goods to immigrant trader, Jamal (Dulfi Al-Jaburi) who runs the suburb.
Trying to provide for his mother and younger siblings, Caspar sees the opportunity for advancement when he is approached by a gangster from outside the suburb, Björn (Roland Møller) to steal a few big ticket items. Finding an almost surrogate father in Björn, Caspar soon gets work driving prostitutes to their ‘dates’ and selling drugs, and begins to see the monetary rewards of serious crime. His foray into the Danish underworld soon infuriates his previous associate Jamal, and Caspar is forced into violent situations that he is totally unprepared for.
Noer, who co-wrote the screenplay, sets up a tense plot emphasising the grim psychology of criminals and puts his background as a documentary filmmaker to good use in an appropriately gritty and intense style, although the film is not without moments of poetic visual imagery.
Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at Göteborg Film Festival.