Flame and Citron

Rating:

* * *

Verdict:

Stylish - almost to a fault - but gripping.

The true story of two heroes of the resistance in Nazi-occupied Denmark makes for an accomplished and engrossing thriller whose cynical, if not nihilistic, sensibility lends it a strikingly modern tone.

The title refers to the respective codenames of Bent (Lindhardt) and Jorgen (Mikkelsen), who operate as hitmen, dealing to Danish collaborators and to the Germans themselves in Copenhagen in 1944.

They're pretty gung-ho when we first meet them: Citron deadpans that part of the reason for one killing is that "we were in the neighbourhood" and the assassins are fond of celebrating with their mates in a cafe popular with the Nazi hierarchy.

But matters soon take a turn for the darker: Flame becomes involved with a mysterious older woman, Ketty (Stengade), who may be ally or enemy; Citron's marriage comes under strain; and they start to have their differences of opinion on tactics with the shadowy Stockholm-based group that runs the resistance.

Director and co-writer Madsen, who used Mikkelsen and Stengade in the excellent marriage-on-the-rocks drama

Prague

a couple of years ago, is alive to the moral ambiguities in the story. Like Jean-Pierre Melville's 1960s masterpiece

Army of Shadows

, this is far from a straight-shooting tale of derring-do with the comfort of an uplifting winner-takes-all finale. Every sequence shimmers with uncertainty and hidden menace and the plot is a dense tangle of intrigue, mixed motives and human frailty.

It's full of truly electrifying scenes - notably one in which Flame finds himself the unexpected prey of an officer (Zischler) he's been sent to execute - and the performances are splendid.

Its effectiveness is undermined by a slightly-too-lush production design - it's the most expensive Danish film ever and, at times, the newly minted sheen undermines the noir intentions.

However, the stylish cinematography and deliberate staginess highlight the fact that this is as much a moral inquiry as a historical drama.

It is about the impossibility - or at least the unsustainable cost - of being a hero in a world where right and wrong have ceased to mean anything. "It's not just or unjust," says Flame. "It's just war."

Peter Calder

Cast:

Thure Lindhardt, Mads Mikkelsen, Stine Stengade, Christian Berkel, Hanns Zischler.

Director:

Ole Christian Madsen.

Running time:

130 mins.

Rating:

R16 (violence and content that may disturb). In Danish and German, with English subtitles.