The Middle Man

Hagen is a decent actor, but what does Hamer want to convey with this movie? So many things didn't make sense to me. Like, why is the story set in a Rust Belt town, in the middle of nowhere in the US, when it's not even shot in the US, but Canada, and the plot is loosely based on a Norwegian book called "Sluk?" There are plenty of depressing rusty old industrial towns in Scandinavia Hamer could use as a more efficient backdrop to this story. This backdrop would even better match the acting style of the Scandinavian actors, Nordic noir. All of them looked out of sorts in this Rust Belt town. I was not convinced the Scandinavian actors were American and/or had any real connection to the town, even though Hamer threw in a few family members and friends for the connection to seem real. Their accents were also all over the place, even though they tried to pull off an Appalachian dialect. Hamer could have closed this gap if he'd chosen a location closer to home. Nope. The movie fell flat for me and in the end I didn't care what happened to any of the characters. Sad. I really wanted to love this movie.