Mads Mikkelsen Week: Cool Guy

Mads Mikkelsen seems like a cool guy.  You know, like Zoolander, Billy Zane cool guy, the type you should listen to.  It must have been his performance in 2004's King Arthur that first caught my attention where he played the quiet, badass knight, Tristan.  In it, he knows how to throw knives, fights like a samurai, shoots people out of trees with a bow and arrow from a mile away and has an eagle as a friend.  While the movie wasn't great, it was an enjoyable sword swinging, men on a mission action pic that warranted two trips to a dollar theater to view.  That performance led to tracking down his Danish work where he had become a top star after breaking in with Pusher and it's sequel, a franchise based around the gritty and bleak yet fascinating lives of low level drug dealers.

Of course, it wasn't always easy finding his movies in the states but Blockbuster came through as I started to seek out more of Mikkelsen's work.  His roles and appearances varied from a nervous, cannibalistic butcher in the dark comedy The Green Butchers to a simple, in denial priest butting heads with a neo-Nazi in Adam's Apples.  2006's Casino Royale put him in the international spotlight as a poker playing, stock market manipulating, civil war funding James Bond villain who weeps blood.  That same year I got a hold of Susanne Bier's fantastic and shattering melodrama, After the Wedding where Mads plays Jacob, a man living in India running an orphanage who goes back to Copenhagen to ask a rich businessman for a donation.  Turns out the rich businessman is marrying Jacob's former lover/mother of a daughter he never knew he had.  Seriously, if you have Netflix, it's on there and is worth checking out.  If there was ever an award bestowed for best use of Sigur Ros music, After the Wedding would win, hands down.  After watching the flick, I sat down for nearly an hour, writing down my thoughts and feelings in an emotional and existential haze, it's that kind of movie.


In addition to all of his film work, Mikkelsen was also a face for H&M clothing in the late 2000's.  Today, rumors are swirling that Mads is in contention for the role of Dr. Stephen Strange, Marvel Comics' arrogant surgeon turned sorcerer supreme.  Mikkelsen had come close to starring Thor:  The Dark World as villain Malekith but his schedule on Hannibal got in the way.  I'm glad though, Malekith's role wasn't exactly a showy or interesting one so The Mads would have been wasted.

Check out this ultimate Cool Guy interview:

Mads Mikkelsen Week: The Hunt

Starting with several episodes of Hannibal, I continued my Mads Mikkelsen viewing with a 2014 Best Foreign Language Film Nominee, The Hunt.  Denmark has produced several Best Foreign Film nominees in recent years including The Hunt, A Royal Affair and After the Wedding.  What do all of these films have in common?  Mads Mikkelsen.  Although he's starred in American films like Casino Royale and Clash of the Titans, Mr. Mikkelsen still hasn't been able to secure himself a juicy, leading man role here in the states.  Unless you count his wonderfully creepy performances on TV's Hannibal.  His frequent director, Nicolas Winding Refn, successfully introduced himself to the U.S. of A. with 2011's moody and violent heist flick, Drive (tied as my personal favorite of that year) and has since re-teamed with leading man dujour Ryan Gosling.  Refn and Mikkelsen worked together on the acclaimed Pusher series and re-teamed for the surreal "action" movie, Valhalla Rising.  Apparently the two are quite fond of each other as they do not speak to each other socially between projects then argue often and passionately while making the film.

The Hunt was directed by Thomas Vinterberg and written with Tobias Lindholm.  Mikkelsen stars as Lucas, an unassuming nice guy who works at the local kindergarten after having lost his job at the high school when it closed.  Divorced with a teenage son, Lucas lives a simple life hunting and drinking with his gang of friends while being a favorite of the students at the kindergarten.  Klara, daughter of Lucas' best friend Theo, latches on to Lucas since her parents always seem to be fighting and forgetting she exists.  When Klara's crush is rebuffed, the little girl makes up a white lie and tells the school master that Lucas exposed himself to her.  The school master immediately believes the little girl and soon Lucas' life is turned upside down as he is fired from his job and ostracized by much of the community, including his former close friends.

A simple story that yields powerful results, The Hunt is an engaging drama that looks at how words and perception can totally change someone's life.  Even though Lucas did nothing wrong, most are quick to call him a pervert and cast him out.  By the time the truth comes out, it's too late as Lucas has lost so much over nothing and will forever be seen differently by some of those around him.  Mikkelsen gives a typically great performance as the goofball kindergarten teacher as well as the man fighting for his dignity and name.  The movie pulled a reaction out of me as I would not have forgiven anyone that thought I was capable of such a heinous crime, especially without any evidence.  In fact, I'd hold that grudgement for the rest of my days...if I didn't go Rambo on the town first.  But that is the sign of a fine storyteller isn't it?  What we see onscreen seems like it could happen to us yet we still know it's a movie.



In case you don't know what I'm talking about, just don't push it: