Kongekabale has received rave reviews in all of the Danish newspapers and apparently, this is the prime achievement of the Danish film industry in the last couple of years. However, in my opinion, the film has several flaws, which makes it mediocre at best.
The biggest flaw is, like it said in another review on this page, that we don't really care about the characters. This is because of the fact, that the characters are not fully explored, but are rather used as plot devices. Furthermore, they are all stereotypes. The two journalist are virtually copies of Woodward and Bernstein ("All the President's men"), with one of them being a naive idealistic rookie journalist, and the other an experienced journalist who is fully aware of how rotten the system is. The spin doctor is also a stereotype with his slick appearance and behavior.
The worst character, however, is "the bad guy" played by Søren Pilmark. I have never seen a character who is so purely evil as he is. Not once in the film do we see any sign of a redeeming feature. He wants to become the prime minister at any price. We never believe in him as a realistic character, because he is so one-sided.
The script writer, the director and the actors have stated that this is a realistic view into the world of Danish politics. I find it difficult to believe that the Danish parliament is a place of greed and corruption of such gigantic Machiavellian proportions as this film claims. Even Oliver Stone who is considered by many to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist has a lot more nuances in his films, which makes the characters more believable. Unfortunately, this "golden age" of Danish cinema is characterized by black and white characters and stereotypes rather than originality and realism.
The biggest flaw is, like it said in another review on this page, that we don't really care about the characters. This is because of the fact, that the characters are not fully explored, but are rather used as plot devices. Furthermore, they are all stereotypes. The two journalist are virtually copies of Woodward and Bernstein ("All the President's men"), with one of them being a naive idealistic rookie journalist, and the other an experienced journalist who is fully aware of how rotten the system is. The spin doctor is also a stereotype with his slick appearance and behavior.
The worst character, however, is "the bad guy" played by Søren Pilmark. I have never seen a character who is so purely evil as he is. Not once in the film do we see any sign of a redeeming feature. He wants to become the prime minister at any price. We never believe in him as a realistic character, because he is so one-sided.
The script writer, the director and the actors have stated that this is a realistic view into the world of Danish politics. I find it difficult to believe that the Danish parliament is a place of greed and corruption of such gigantic Machiavellian proportions as this film claims. Even Oliver Stone who is considered by many to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist has a lot more nuances in his films, which makes the characters more believable. Unfortunately, this "golden age" of Danish cinema is characterized by black and white characters and stereotypes rather than originality and realism.