Certificate: 15 (strong language). Running Time: 95 mins. UK Distributor: Sovereign Film Distribution
WHO’S IN IT?
Pål Sverre Hagen, Nicolas Bro, Trond Fausa Aurvåg, Paul Gross, Tuva Novotny, Nina Andresen Borud, Rossif Sutherland, Aksel Hennie, Kenneth Welsh, Don McKellar, Sheila McCarthy, Bill Lake, Rosalie Chilelli, Josiane McCartney
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Bent Hamer (director, writer, producer), Reinhard Brundig, Nina Frese, Jacob Jarek, Jamie Manning, Simone Urdl and Jennifer Weiss (producers), Jonathan Goldsmith (composer), John Christian Rosenlund (cinematographer), Anders Refn (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A depressed town hires someone (Hagen) to deliver their constant bad news…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE MAN?
The great irony about The Middle Man is that, despite looking and sounding like a traditional tale of Americana, there is hardly an American bone in its body. The film comes from Norwegian writer-director Bent Hamer, who adapts the novel Sluk by Norwegian-Danish author Lars Saabye Christensen, with a crew that also hails from Scandinavia, and a cast made up almost entirely of European and Canadian actors (many of whom, naturally, struggle to hide their regional accents as residents of a small town that is clearly supposed to be somewhere within the Rust Belt).
Of course, if they had a compelling enough story to tell with equally engaging characters, then perhaps the stark contrast wouldn’t stand out as much. However, The Middle Man is an oddly light film with very little to say that makes its existence worthwhile, other than to confuse and confound the audience with its overwhelmingly European sensibilities.
The film takes place in the rundown town of Karmack, which has seen an unusual rise in serious accidents and even deaths that have left most of the townsfolk rather depressed. The town’s overarching “Committee” – made up of just three people, including the Sheriff (Paul Gross), a doctor (Don McKeller) and a pastor (Nicolas Bro) – decides to hire a “middle man” to be the one to deliver the bad news to residents, eventually picking the mild-mannered Frank (Pål Sverre Hagen) for the job. Frank, an emotionally restrained man who still lives with his overbearing mother (Nina Andresen Borud), takes his job rather seriously, even when some time goes by with no news to report to anyone, or as he starts a romantic liaison with his new secretary Blenda (Tuva Novotny). However, when Blenda’s rather nasty ex-boyfriend Bob Spencer (Trond Fausa Aurvåg) picks a petty fight with Frank’s best friend Steve (Rossif Sutherland), which leaves the latter with permanent brain damage, Frank finds himself going to darker and darker places as his conscience desires retribution.
Hamer’s approach to this movie is odd, for it is clear that it wants to incorporate the darkly funny stylings of American filmmakers the Coen brothers and David Lynch, but also the po-faced deadpan sensibilities of European auteurs such as Roy Andersson and Yorgos Lanthimos, which doesn’t work that well when they’re put together. It creates a strange tone and execution that’s almost like watching a race of aliens put on a production of an Arthur Miller play, only if they had no idea what any of these strange emotions that humans keep going on about are, or how to even sound like they’re right for the part (because, again, their European dialect often slips through their attempted American drawl). All of this absurdist stuff will happen, to where it starts to not make a whole lot of sense in the grander scheme of things, but nobody ever acts as though any of it matters or even makes a shred of difference, which creates this weird atmosphere that’s almost impossible to accept as a viewer.
That obviously seems to have been the intention, because it is, after all, meant to be a satire that takes place within some sort of heightened reality – it just happens to not be a very good satire, or at least one where the overall point is frustratingly vague. It’s hard to tell what Hamer is trying to say here, because nothing too extreme ever happens during our main character’s day job to upset the established order of things, nor is there ever really a sense that this apparently all-powerful “Committee” has such a firm grip on this town that they could be seen as fully authoritarian. Instead, the film breezes too flimsily between being a supposed commentary that’s too lightweight to leave so much as a dent on society, and being a relentlessly downbeat thriller with few crucial consequences or unsatisfying resolutions. There’s nothing to be said here, so many of the film’s satirical intentions tend to end up falling on deaf ears, or those that are just too unengaged to really care.
The film does, however, boast some rather striking cinematography, and for all that’s been said about the uneven accents by these actors, they do a fine job with what they’re given, especially lead Pål Sverre Hagen who is one of the very few performers to show a fair range of actual emotion under Hamer’s direction. Sadly, it isn’t enough to overlook a meandering script with an all-too odd execution that leaves a dissatisfied taste in the mouth, as though you yourself have just been given some rather terrible news.
SO, TO SUM UP…
The Middle Man is a meandering and oddly executed thriller that unsuccessfully tries blending the darkly satirical comedy of the Coen brothers with deadpan European sensibilities, but lacks both an interesting script and a lively entertainment factor to say anything worth the viewer’s time.
The Middle Man is now showing in cinemas nationwide –click here to find a screening near you!
