Continuing in a recent trend to bring the stories of WWII resistance heroes in less-known settings before the public eye (Jews in Defiance and German officers in Valkyrie, amongst others), this is an account of two leaders of the Holger Danske resistance group in Denmark. Having seen their country accept German occupation without a fight, they set about systematically eliminating collaborators. The sheer volume of summary executions covered here would seem inflated for cheap shocks without the knowledge that their group alone accounted for 200 such acts. The certitude that they're on a rational mission sustains them until, inevitably, doubt seeps in as to whether they're killing the real enemy and whose interests they're actually serving, and structurally this is made to mark the beginning of their road to doom.
Madsen's film adds little to the conventional Nazi-fighter framework in terms of an angle and never really generates a sense of edgy paranoia: for all the violence, it seems easy enough for the underground to go about their daily business. But it's crisply shot and tautly acted, and contains a fair deal of exploration of the moral ambiguities of the resistance's actions, and in that satisfies what can be expected of a decent treatment of the subject.
6/10
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