Zingo

Well... First time i saw the swedish comedy Zingo I loved it, it was so goddamn funny from start to end, that I even loved it the second time I saw it, and the third and the fourth...

Mostly every actor is playing good in this movie, especially Tommy Andersson, for his role as "Jocke", and of course, Thomas Hellberg as "Ken Karlsson".

The movie is about a young, wild and confused man called Zingo(also well-played by Björn Kjellman), who takes to much drugs but dreams about having a life as a great father in a typical Swedish stereotype family.

But his girlfriend, Baby(Helena af Sandeberg) does not want to change their lives...

One day, Zingo meets his old pal Mos, and then Zingo gets and idea of making a brand new porno movie.

Why the movie is so very funny, is because all the different kinds of people, and situations..

I still can't understand why everyone seemed to hate this movie... I still think that this is one of the funniest Swedish movies ever made.

Björn Kjellman is, as always solid, in the title role. But what really lift this film is the supporting cast. Newcomer Tommy Andersson is a find as the aggressive Jocke. Thomas Hellberg plays the former star Ken Karlsson. Hellberg does something of a the performance of his career. The underrated Per Morberg is fabulous as the struggling director Mos. All three gives Guldbagge worthy performances. Unfortunately it disappeared in the shadow of many other successful Swedish films 1998.

Mos makes porn films for producer Benno (played by Hans Henriksson, who's a lot of fun). But Mos dreams of something else. He wants to do a serious film out of script he's been writing for five year called Den bruna filmen (The Brown Film). Benno isn't interested, but his cousin Zingo - who wants to leave his wild days behind him a live a normal life - is. With Zingo producing they decide to make Den bruna filmen. But Benno and his German partner who are financing it, think they are doing a trailer for a porno called Kingsize starring Ken Karlsson and a moose. (Zingo got to do the trailer to get more money for the real film, but Ken doesn't know anything about it).

The films lowest assets is the character of Puda (Jarmo Mäkinen), the drug-dealing biker and cineast. It's a character we recognize from many American films from this decade. I think that the serious scenes between Zingo and his father feels misplaced. The films foremost assets is its supporting cast and the dialogue (see the quotes, which I contributed). Wegner's direction is fine and the shape of Zingo works well, the editing with jump cuts suits. The photography is medium flashy, but with too much strobe in some scenes for my taste.

Great dialogues and stunning stunt scenes makes you gonna say "suck mee sideways" (from Jim Carreys Dumb & Dumber). Killer comments like "Lite Boston Gurka på toppen" and "Boston Gurka! det smakar ju skit!" makes the film even better. The actors does a good and convincing job, makes you want to see the film one more time.

In this Swedish comedy, we get to meet the looser Zingo, and a whole bunch of other sad and pathetic figures. Zingo wants to settle down and have a nice family life, but it takes money to start a new life. He convinces a producer that he will do a bizarre porn-film for the German market, featuring one of Sweden´s most respected actors and a moose.

All kinds of stereotypes are lined up here: the main character who wants to prove to his dad that he can succeed with his life, his younger girlfriend who just wants to party all night, his aggressive and stupid best friend. We also have the brutal biker who cuts peoples thumbs off, but also enjoys Bergman-films.

With this comes a poor script which is little believable. Björn Kjellman doesn´t succeed with making his character likeable at all, he´s quite the opposite actually. Nor does the other actors. The director clearly wanted to make a fresh and controversial movie with "Zingo", but fails.

Some jokes works, but most of the black humour misses the mark completely. It could have been good, but no. Great soundtrack though.

2/5

If you're only gonna see one Swedish film, see Zingo. It's the first outrageous Swedish film that has really good actors, and plot. See it