Darkland

In Copenhagen, the Iraqi surgeon Dr. Zaid (Dar Salim) lives a comfortable life with his pregnant wife Stine (Stine Fischer Christensen) in a fancy apartment. One night, while celebrating with friends the near end of the pregnancy period, his twenty-year old junkie brother Yasin (Anis Alobaidi) surprisingly arrives and asks for a large amount of money. Zaid refuses and soon Yasin is found beaten to death. Feeling guilty for the death of Yasin, Zaid goes to the precinct and finds belittle efforts from the detective in charge of investigating the murder case. Soon Zaid, who is black belt in kickboxing, returns to the training in the garage of a friend. He wears black, paints his motorcycle black and drives during the night through the underworld of Copenhagen seeking revenge for his brother. But he pays a high cost for his acts.

"Underverden", a.k.a. "Darkland", is a Danish action-thriller with a reasonable story of revenge but very entertaining like most films of this genre. The plot has good points, showing the dark side of Copenhagen, and the muslin community. But it is hard to believe that a surgeon with solid career and marriage throw thirty years of life in Denmark away to revenge the death of his junkie brother and with his family, friends and himself paying such high cost. Anyway, it is worthwhile watching this film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Guerreiro da Escuridão" ("Darkness Warrior")

I'm closer to Thobias on this one.

Sure, it's an easy watch, quick and stylish to a fault, and certainly raises highly pertinent questions about Danish (or any OECD) society.

But I found that the script didn't take anywhere near enough effort to make it plausible. So, here we have this highly integrated professional, Dr Jekyll, with a great marriage. He's consciously walked away from his culture and ethnicity, goes out of his way to abuse his poor old dad for being mentally stuck in Iraq.

Then, on behalf of a loser brother he doesn't even like, he suddenly turns into Mr Hyde on steroids? The only partial explanation we're offered is guilt, but it didn't wash for me.

THOROUGHLY enjoyed this movie. For me it wasn't about the "predictability" of the film.... nor was it about the "modern-day revenge" theme as indicated by others.

For me it was all about the back-story.... the story behind the apparent tale. oh yeah.... very current... and very valid in today's society....

To start off: Watch this movie and support the film by going to the cinema to watch it or rent it - you will not be disappointed! I highly recommend catching it in the cinema.

All in all, this is a great movie within the genre of Danish gang related crime films. It has great acting, amazing music and sound effect design, beautiful cinematography and a plot that works on so many levels I would have never expected! What I expected was 'John Wick' meets Danish gangsters, which wouldn't have been bad, but what I got was so much more. This movie manages to establish a truly sensible love/hate relationship through powerful scenes and dialogues and then continues to use this to its advantage. There are hints at many different things in the plot, which are a delight to discover and think about as afterthought.

I would say 10/10, but I am deducting a star for just a few handful of scenes and dialogues that seemed off and got the movie off to a bit of a slow start. Had they not been there, this movie would have been a perfect 10/10 and maybe the best of its kind within the genre from Denmark of all time. It arguably still is.

TLDR; 'Underverden' is a classic revenge movie, as summarized in the plot description, but it is also much, much more than that!

Darkland follows the rules of a classic Scandinavian thriller. The atmosphere is oppressive thanks to the acting of the main character and due to the fact that most of the scenes take place at night.

The screenplay is pretty straightforward and without any major surprise but there is still a lot of suspense. We are waiting to see what Zaid is going to do next. This movie also raises interesting questions about ethnicity and one's integration into a different country and culture.