Jackpot (15) 90 mins ***
With
Stieg Larsson all filmed out, Jo Nesbo has been appointed the movies’ new
favourite Nordic crime writer. Nesbo favours compromised, not always sympathetic
characters forced into scrabbling to save their hides, but his USP may be his
(not un-British) sense of humour. Here, an offbeat noir scenario – born loser
Oscar (Kyrre Hellum) sits in a police interview room one Christmas, trying to
explain how he survived the bloodbath that did for his cohorts in a football
pools syndicate – gets spun by director Magnus Martens into something like
subtitled Ealing or Lock Stock…,
right down to the unconventional use of a tanning bed.
Where
April’s lively Nesbo adaptation Headhunters
moved in lavish circles, Jackpot has
been knocked out fast and cheap, with tongue firmly in cheek: severed body
parts are tossed around with macabre glee, and Martens works up a fair amount
of misanthropic fun at the expense of dumb-as-nuts characters who probably
deserve their fates. Once again, the tangled plotting barely merits thinking
about in the light of day, but delivers a certain knowing, pulpy enjoyment
while you’re in the room with it. The end-credits cover of Slade’s “Merry Xmas
Everybody” remains questionable, though – especially at the height of August.
Jackpot opens in selected cinemas from today.
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