In Order of Disappearance (dignified with a considerably cleverer title for the international market than the original Norwegian) has Stellan Skarsgård go full Liam Neeson as a snow plough driver in the icy Norwegian mountains whose son is given a drug overdose by a ruthless local gang, and then proceeds to plough through them one by one. Supposedly a black comedy, it relies on turning each relished killing into a whimsy for its humour through insert screens after each one, announcing who just bit the dust, and the rest of the comedy is equally fumbling, as you might expect of Nordic culture where stand-up is still a relatively new and exotic thing. There are some moments of amusement when aggrieved Serbian gangsters turn up and comment on the cultural oddities of Norway, and the film could have done with much more of this. As it is, instead we get Bruno Ganz mumbling Serbian as their boss for some bizarre reason and an entirely foreseeably bloody ending.
In a development that sees life imitating satire to the nth degree, this is actually being remade in English, with...Liam Neeson.
5/10
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