Mænd og Høns (Anders Thomas Jensen, 2015)

Men & Chicken features a cavalcade of the internationally best-known Danish male film stars uglying up and dumbing down to play an assortment of cretins who discover that they share a father. But there's also a mystery to be solved about what their departed progenitor, a mad scientist, got up to.
It's not unreasonable to make two generalisations on the basis of this black comedy: firstly, that there seem to be only a dozen big names in the Danish screen actor world, and secondly, that there is a national preoccupation with half-wits and lunatics, as the set-up of the former asylum that serves as their home has strong echoes of The Idiots, for example. That notwithstanding, it's clear that the cast have a whale of a time spazzing out and that in turn keeps the audience on its toes by virtue of some bizarre twists on the way to a surprisingly sweet end. It's not exactly big or clever, but it is good fun and rather more substantial than its wacky premise promises.

6/10