hjermind2000 Reviews

Bag enhver mand (2023– )

Decent entertainment but not much more than that

[6/10 · 6 January 2024]

I was entertained when watching the show and kept wanting to see more, so it is doing something right, but overall I find the show to be a bit lacking.

So the director/writer/acting duo Julie Rudbæk and Jesper Zuschlag have done a lot of romantic comedies together and this time they have decided to make comedy-drama about the restaurant enterprise, in "Bag enhver mand". I am not criticizing the show for being inspired by "The Bear", but the inspiration is obviously there - both in the direction and in the overall themes.

Michael (Jesper Zuschlag) is the head-chef in the restaurant Værk. He follows the french kitchen rules, where a tough environment relying on order and discipline is seen as the best way to run an efficient restaurant. Really the show presents those values as an excuse to demean others and for men to present themselves as Macho types, while it may not even be the most efficient way to run a business, as Værk is clearly suffering a very dysfunctional work environment, but it's also clear Michael isn't living up to his own rules and Værk seems to be long past its glory days in 2016. Luckily the new deputy chef Naja (Julie Rudbæk) gets hired to improve the social environment of Værk and to sell a better story. We get the main premise of the show, is obviously the conflicts that escalate between the characters Naja and Michael.

Overall, the acting in this show is great, but I feel like we would benefit from some better character development - what is Michael's wants? Does he want Værk to be as great as it was in 2016? Because I feel like it should be apparent, even to him, that having a guy like Anders (Ari Alexander) work in his kitchen, won't win him any sort of awards. Naja is deadset to get a great career, but I feel disconnected from her, because I don't understand why you would dedicate so much time to a dysfunctional climate like Værk and sacrifice the things she is sacrificing for it. And oh yeah, it's difficult to understand exactly what her function is in a kitchen.

Overall the characters are okay, but I think Vibeke or Vibs to those who are in her good grace (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen) excels as the business owner who can be both vile, petty and utterly calculated.

Overall the show is decent entertainment if you have some time to kill. Frederik Cilius plays a snobbish, conservative food critic and he's good at it (wonder why). Anders Brink Madsen plays an apparently aging (he's only 50) waiter and I wonder why he is still in the restaurant business, if he is as incompetent as the show presents him as - it's a tough balance to find between comedy and drama. If you go too heavy on one end, it can be difficult to take the other side serious. The show manages the drama aspects, but I think the comedy could be better, perhaps it's just not my sort of humor.

Also I think it's time for Jesper Zuschlag and Julie Rudbæk to take the back seat in their projects and let other actors take the lead roles. This is the 3rd project where they play the lead roles in a comedy-drama where the viewers are supposed to speculate on whether they will end up in a romantic relationship or not. Can we try something different now? Maybe play a supporting character in your own projects for once.

Taxa (1997–1999)

A very engaging TV drama

[8/10 · 5 January 2024]

The story follows Krone Taxa a small family-led taxa company that is facing an increasingly challenging business environment, especially from its main competitor - City Bilerne.

The classic david vs goliath and bad big corporation trope is being told with a great cast of characters among the taxi drivers. This is the show that established Peter Gantzlers career as Taxa Mike a tough action-hero/taxi driver who is not afraid to get his hands dirty but is also a loyal friend and an overall charming guy. There are a lot of other great actors in this, but it would take me too long to mention all of them. I do have to mention the main villain "Herman fra City Bilerne" the CEO of the competing taxa company. Herman is a cold businessman who is deadset on taking control over Krone Taxa due to some mysterious past he has with the company. Whenever you see Herman he will present himself as a gallant businessman, usually offering help to some character. Eventually Herman will show his true face as a ruthless capitalist and his gifts will turn to poison. He reminds me in many ways of some sort of devil from fiction.

A great cast of characters is also accompanied by great writing. There are a lot of storylines throughout the show and you should be prepared for love triangles, recovering alcoholics, car chases, drugdebts, murdercases and incompetent policemen, just to mention a few. I will say that in some ways, there will be so many things going on in an episode that even if you don't like a particular storyline, you shouldn't worry too much cause there will be b and c plots in one episode to take your attention. Some storylines feel like they don't have a satisfying conclusion, some feel like they are completely forgotten a few episodes later. I suspect that the show might have been produced under a tight schedule, which may have caused some things to feel a little rushed.

With that said, I definitely recommend people to give it a try - if you are from Denmark, which I assume you are if you are looking this show up - you can find it for free on DR's service 'Bonanza'. The show is not in the ideal format and you might have to use an obscure browser app if you want to see it on smart-tv and there won't be subtitles, but it's 56 episodes of great entertainment for free.

Unit One (2000–2004)

A strange mixture between crime and familydrama

[5/10 · 30 November 2023]

First memory I have of this show, is my father angrily walking away from the living room uttering "what the hell does this have to do with a murder case!?". Almost 20 years after it's initial run, I've finally decided to go through this title.

Rejseholdet has a nostalgic place for me. I can't entirely explain why, but I have vivid memories of watching some reruns as I grew up. I'm going to have to agree with my father's summary though - a lot of episodes just put too much attention on family drama, regarding some of the reoccurring characters.

In each episode, we are introduced to a new setting, a murder has taken place and its up to our main cast to cooperate with the local police station, in order to solve the case. The cases are based on actual real-life murder cases and that could make up for an interesting show, but throughout the entire show, there are some problems with the writing.

We have our main cast go through the death of family members, miscarriages, cheating partners and all sorts of things that it's just tiresome to watch and you ask yourself why the writers thought anyone would want to watch this?

There are a lot of cases where Mads Mikkelsen and Lars Bom are just randomly walking nearby some suspects so they can get an action-sequence where they fight with the bad guys. Whenever the show says that there are a team of 30 cops watching some criminals, you know that Mads Mikkelsen will risk his life and run over to handle everything solo, while none of aforementioned 30 cops step in, all so we can get some tension. Well at least Mikkelsen's character is working on the case, though he should probably have been fired a long time ago. Lars Bom? He's unit one's driver and a fictional soccer player meaning the entire country knows who he is, so of course he helps solving crimes and do undercover work for the police.

Also, Lars Brygmann's character starts off as a talented detective who is really good at observing crime-scenes to deduce what took place. But at some point the writers just decides that he's a psychic, so now he just have random visions that show him where important information is planted.

All these things makes it increasingly hard to take the show seriously, you just lose your suspension of disbelief. But there are also positive things, when it stays focused on the crime stuff it's usually okay. Sometimes it's super obvious who the murderer is, sometimes you get a red herring and sometimes the supposed red herring turns out to have been the actual murderer all along. You get some great performances, both from the main-cast but also from guest-stars. In season 3 you get one of Nicolas Bros most praised performances, but among other guest stars is: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Lars Mikkelsen, Thure Lindhart, Ole Thestrup and many more.

I'm giving this show a mediocre rating. Initially I was willing to give the show a higher rating. Even though the problems are present throughout the entire series, I think things get worse throughout the series, especially the 2 season 4 episodes are extremely ridiculous. I read a review here saying the show was realism over action. I couldn't disagree more, this show is drama and action over realism.

Deadpool (2016)

An obnoxious film, promoting obnoxious behavior

[3/10 · 8 October 2023]

If you like the Deadpool character, you'll probably like this movie. Personally this was my introduction to the character and I really fail to see the appeal.

The character is very unlikeable and I can only assume that when people idolize this character, they also mimic his toxic behavior. Throughout the film we get to see Ryan Reynolds portray a main-character that speaks profanities, makes rude remarks and go throughout the movie without learning anything. I am sure that Deadpool's fans find these things to be charming quirks, but personally I am sick of people thinking it's okay to make inappropriate comments at anyone and pass it off as "humor". I took note that the two characters that are the biggest victims of his remarks are an older blind lady who lives in his apartment and the other individual being Negasonic Teenage Warhead who I guess committed the crime of being a teenage girl with an emo haircut. The older blind lady committed the crime of being a drug addict and non-attractive, which I guess is a major offense in the eyes of the Deadpool character.

The one character I did like in this movie is Colossus, who is tasked with the unachievable goal - to redeem Deadpool. I enjoyed that he was clearly a very powerful presence but also tried his best to be a gentleman, even during a potentially lethal fightscene. Unfortunately the X-men are clearly secondary characters and only Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Colossus appear in this film. This is apparently because the studio could only afford 2 x-men, based on Deadpool's 4th-wall breaking "funny" comments. Worse though, they leave deadpool alone by the end of the movie, when it's become apparent that he is a danger to those around him and he is not going to change. The X-men should by all means then consider him a villain and hunt him down, but by that point the movie is over, so I guess we can hope they get to do that later.

The storyline is as bland as they come. The main character explains his origin story to the audience, we see the villain he is hunting down, give our main character super-powers but also scar his face. We also learn that apparently Deadpool had a girl-friend before he became Deadpool, but he can't bring himself to contact her now because his face has been so horrifically scarred. His girl-friend is written like any female love interest you see in a overbudgetted comedy. There's nothing interesting about her, except that she's a stripper/prostitute. It's impossible to believe she's even a real person. She's little more than a prize our hero has to win, after she has fulfilled her damsel in distress trope. I guess we should think that Deadpool has learned something by the end of the movie, when his girlfriend still wants to be with him, despite what he looks like. I can only ask the audience, do you think it would be the other way around? Would Deadpool want to be with his girlfriend if she suffered some horrific mutilation? My guess is no and we can thank the hollow writing for that. Nothing about his girlfriend is interesting but I guess we can at least say she looks attractive.

So I would say this film deserve a 3/10 star rating. Also, I can only imagine the amount of people that have behaved in a toxic way thanks to this movie. Deadpool can be toxic, so why can't I? It's not the sort of behavior you should promote and throughout the movie I was just hoping for Deadpool to get his comeuppance. Unfortunately it never happened.

Agent (2023– )

Main draw is celebrity cameos I guess.

[3/10 · 23 August 2023]

If you are unfamiliar with danish celebrities, a lot of the jokes will be lost on you. In every episode there is supposed to be a funny cameo that I rarely think is that good.

We are supposed to laugh at the idea that Thomas Blachman is some mafia boss, that Sidse Babett is bipolar and that Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has hired a personal bard. These sorts of jokes usually falls flat, perhaps because of the delivery but it's also really hard to buy any of it. Danish celebrity-life is not nearly as crazy as what we hear from the states. Look at any danish tabloid and the most crazy thing you'll learn is usually that some actor bought a new house.

The celebrity camoes aren't great but even worse is the recurring characters.

Our main character Joe, is a charismatic man who tends to party a lot with his associates. We are supposed to think that he takes his job too seriously, sometimes being more of a marriage counsellor, a babysitter or a psychologist to his clients. The man also tries to connect with his daughter, but his ex-wife is reluctant to let them spend too much time together, with drugs and wild parties being a regular occurance in Joe's appartment.

A major problem is that Joe is the only recurring character that is allowed to at least have a bit of depth. There are three other characters we see in every episode, his mother who is also his boss that is serious and thinks Joe needs to get his act together. His ex-wife who seems to have full custody over their daughter and who seems to think Joe needs to get his act together. Finally we have Joe's daughter who seems to like him, but she is at least on some level aware that Joe really needs to get his act together. Notice a pattern here?

I know that it's common in danish fiction that the woman fills the serious role that yells at her silly husband, but isn't it about time to try something new? It was a similar dynamic in Klovn, with wives yelling at their stupid and disgusting husbands and that show is from 2005.

The worst character is probably Joe's mother because she yells at him in every episode and she has good reason to be mad at Joe - he is a liar and have borrowed millions in what I assume is the company name, behind her back. Joe is clearly not a person you should hire anywhere, so you ask yourself why he has been allowed to work in his mother's agency for what seems to be most of his adult life. The show also seems to forget that you can make the straight-man funny. Here we have one male lead we are supposed to laugh at, and three female characters that are all serious obstacles that Joe needs manage, somehow.

I give the show three stars because the acting and scenography is okay and while the celebrity-cameos aren't saving the show, I at least think Sidse Babett made an entertaining performance so you can at least check it out if your favorite celebrity makes a cameo. Just don't expect anything great.