Short ramblings; THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE

I really like crime thrillers and crime fiction. Among my favourte writers are Elmore Leonard, Richard Stark and Dennis Lehane.

Then there is that little book I got wind of after watching the very last episode of Justified in which U.S marshal Raylan Givens  hands over a copy of The friends of Eddie Coyle to his partner Tim.

As I´d never heard of it before I decided to check up on the book and see what is what.

Written by George V Higgins, the crime story is told mostly through dialogue and does a very good job of describing the inner workings, machinations and causalities of being a low life criminal. It is a terrible way of life. The "friends" you have can turn on you in just a moment to save their own skin.

I think this notion was what made Higgins novel resonate and become such an important canon of crime fiction. The no-nonsense, un sentimental depiction of crime as  how things can play out if you are unlucky.

For the protagonist, nothing goes as planned, he tries to get himself out of a situation he gotten himself into, but fail to see his own undoing. There is tragedy in that.
I think this was what inspired Elmore Leonard into creating his psychotic goofballs.That mentality of; "it´s not my fault" even though they clearly have only themselves to blame fo rthe shit they get tmemsleves into. A more psychologically believable portrayal  of small time criminals behaviour.

Eddie gets no sentimental empathy neither from its author (Higgins)  or the film´s director Peter Yates (Bullitt) and there lies both the tragedy. The objective portrayal of a criminal, that is easy to like and understand, but he only has himself to blame for his predicament.

I can´t recommend The friends of Eddie Coyle enough.  Whether you choose to read the novel or watch the film you are in for a treat. Written by an author at his peak and directed by a filmmaker at his peak makes for a tremendous work of crime fiction to digest either verbally or visually.

JOHAN FALK SERIES PART 10: SPELETS REGLER (RULES OF THE GAME)

Previously on Johan Falk:

All the bad shit GSI was up to became public  and a lot of the crazy shenanigans came back and hit the crime fighting organization hard in the ass. As a result it  made them for a short time a lawless bunch of people. Falk and Wagner did the best they could to cover their asses. They did and it sort of worked out.

Now:

GSI is still around, but apparantly has new management. Good. Maybe they can get rid of the cut corners-mentality and stretching/breaking the law. Hopefully this will become an organization of public transparancy that truly belong is in  this day and age and befitting a true  modern democratic society.

Yeah, right...

The Plot:

Frank Wagners position is still an uncomfortable one. One could expect it would have been eased by now.  He has officially quit as civilian infiltrator and is on his way yo become a successful resteranteaur after a successful opening night. For personal reasons Wagner gets in bed with GSI again. The brother of Franks fiancee  gets dead, Wagner feels responsible for getting the boy that way as Frank was indirectly responsible when giving friendly advice surrounding money lending problems with scrupelous individuals

At the same time GSI is after the top men behind the smuggling of a new drug into Sweden. White Gold. One of copaction movies more  famous tropes is that "there is a new drug out there that kills young people". It is a well established type of  setup to use, why fix what is not broken when it works?

Franks and Johans interests meet and once again Frank is back in the murky misty world that is undercover infiltration.

Jibber jabber:

Spelets regler starts off  very James Bond-ish with Falk in a tuxedo at a casino attempting to work as an undercover cop.. A entrapment is in the works, but as usual things turn to shit, and people gets dead. It is a fun scene as it shows a little of what this film has in store for us. Plenty  of these little James Bond/Mission Impossible setups with sting operations and other spy movie tropes. They are usually very prominant in these films, but this one seem a lot like a spy movie in particular.

"My name is Falk,Johan Falk"

Watching some of Anders Nilssons old action films from the 80´s ( waay before the Falk-movies) they are usually filled with the kind of espionage nonsense (Russian Ninja a.ka Russian terminator is a good example), so there is definitely a flavour of the spy genre in these post-theatrically released Falk movies as well. I would argue that  this is a far much better movie than Russian Ninja. Except for the severe lack of Ninja. A serious offense. Movies are by default better when they have ninjas in them. It is scientifically proven. When will Johan Falk do battle with ninja?

Oh, and here is a "great" dvd cover for that particular film. This is the one I have myself:

What wonders Photoshop can produce!

There are more obvious connection to the world of 007. Remember From Russia with Love, there is a scene in which Rosa Klebb and kronsteen stands in front of Blofeld trying to desperately explain why they have failed. There is a bit of  suspension of which of them gets murdered, There is a similar scene in which Frank stands in front of the pakistan mob boss being confronted with the possbibiltu that he might be a snitch. The guy behind him, Vijay Khans head of security bites the dust instead. 

Here is the scene from From Russia with love that i am referring to:

Compare that to the similar scene in Spelets regler:

Some similarities, I´d say.

The murkiness continue as one elaborates on the characters in the series

Wagner, like Leo Gaut is a restaranteaur highly involved in crime. What really seperates Wagner and Gaut from a morally point of view? They both have cooperated with the police, they also have murdered people. As the Gaut story arc taught us, there was more to his person than just the ruthlessness. But Wagner is also a highly ruthless person, when it comes to protecting his identity and his family. As we will later see, he never hesitates to shoot someone when that is the case.

It is about perception of a person we get from which images, sounds and a narraytive that  are selected for an audience.. It is through all that we build up whether we like a character or not. Food for thought.

Some  disturbing events unfold when Johan  makes Frank work with a bunch of drugdealing morons who deals this new White Gold to university students .Heaps of dead students are headline material.We are just in film one in the new series and already this shit happens? Way to go, GSI.

Some final ramblings and thoughts:

*There is also this connection between Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon and Johan Falk ; Throughout the films Johan goes from isolated loner to family man. Same trajectory Riggs has in Lethal Weapon 1-4.  Also; Falk tries to quit smoking, like Riggs does in LW3. I have yet to see Falk use dog biscuits as a substitute. Falk seem to favor nicotine chewing gum which is a bit boring as a comaprison to dog biscuits.

*Falk gets to do some cool stuff in this one. He beats the shit out of a couple of bad guys with a pipe. Shoots another one multiple  times and later makes an enemy out of his neighbour with a chainsaw.

*There also are some  twists and fun moments that Spelets regler contains. The sting operation in the climax has a good mix of all the sorts of clandestine Mission Impossible stuff. Making good use of the plot and conflicts being set up throughout the film. Unfortunatly it is a bit bogged down with so much that is going on, which is only natural as this is the first one in a new series of films. But is impossible to discuss in a simple blog post.

Next time on Johan Falk: Gothenburg nazis!.....I hate Gothenburg nazis.

JOHAN FALK SERIES PART 9: DE FREDLÖSA (THE OUTLAWED)

Previously on Johan Falk:

Where the fuck do I even begin? All kinds of shit GSI has been up to. Illegal police procedures, shootings, harassments, civilians getting killed and so on. The list goes on and on and on and on and on.

Now:

This is a really good one. Everything the first series has built up to comes to a head. The GSI actually becomes the outlaws as the dirt they have been up to surfaces to the public. I really like this chapter as it is also thrilling and more Frank Wagner with a more substantial role to play and the whole shebang has explosions and biker gangs and shootings. What more could you ask for?

I´ve been moaning on a couple of the later Falk-entries, but this one  rival the best in the series. I think Operation Nightingale and Leo Gaut has other strengths besides the action parts, but they felt a bit like sideways chapters that tried to deepen some stuff. And I appreciate that shit now, more than before. They are crucial to Falkology. Crucial in understanding the teachings of the world of Johan Falk. I like them more now than before. I may have grown as a person because of them. Hopefully. Perhaps. But not likely.

Plot talking:

The district attorney´s house has been bombed, and GSI wants to find out who did it. They suspect a biker gang as the D.A had built a case against them. Turns out they are wrong. But who is it that targets representatives of the Swedish court of law? Also it turns out the actual attorney was away and someone else took the hit who was in the house at the time.

The media is most certainly interested in the investigation of the bombing of a district attorney and everything leads back to a case in which a former GSI-member Tommy (who got killed. See Part 4 of this beautiful saga) manipulated evidence to gain a conviction. The individual that got the conviction has seemingly targeted the Swedish justice system. Cops, attorneys you name it. The war on law has begun.  But why?

The bad guys has targeted the individuals as they are representatives of law and order and a specific case,  but the real culprits were GSI. They were the ones fabricating the evidence and gave the investigators and the district attorney the material on which they built the case. The higher up’s, despite them accepting and silently enforcing this type of institutional policy will have nothing to do with GSI now. What assholes, GSI are now hunted. They are now the outlaws. Johan Falk with the help of Frank Wagner must clean up this mess before more bombings and assassinations on the Swedish justice system.

The personal problems between Sophie and her husband leads to him leaking to the press about GSI methods of using civilian infiltrators. And more people get hurt. There is also a very good scene in which she bitch slap the husband when she founds out.Pretty funny and not always you see that in movies.  

Uh-oh

^Slap*

Owww...

I would also take this time on making people more aware of Sophie as a female character. She is awesome and will later on play a larger part in things to come.

Frank is still stuck in the stupid-ass Catch 22-machinery of GSI. Johan wants his help tracking the bomber and who and why is targeting the district attorney. Falk forces him yet again to something and also gives Frank a half-assed promise that this is the last he will ask of him.

Jibber jabber:

The whole mentality of getting quick results to show for media is culminating in a long spiral of non-transparent activity and police work. And now that media has found out about the  questionable work ethic, GSI is being hung out to dry.  But are they really the ones to blame?

For Falkologists, it is also interesting to note that we see for the first time in the last few movies Johan Falk operating for a short time outside the law, When the higher up´s want him to come in. for debriefing he basically tells them to go to hell.

Falk basically tells his superior "Have a lovely day,assholes"
 way before Schwarzenegger does the same in Escape Plan.

Too bad Falk never gets to do anything awesomelly illegal while GSI is ostracized , but you have to enjoy the little things you get in life.

As the whole story of this series is based on an actual case, we can see here the real problem is not GSI. The ones in charge are the ones that made this whole situation possible. A situation that people are put in impossible situations in a world that is governed by no rules but self-preservation.

A question could be asked that what good does that type of policing do. What kind of damage would that do to a democracy in the long run? When the loss of belief in the system increases would that lead to increase in private policing? Would that be more of an acceptable thing? What happens to due process then? Public insight and transparency into the operations? Would it be the same thing? 

It´s an exciting thriller that rounds up everything the previous movies has shown us and this one deals with consequences. The series has been just as much about Falk as Wagner, even though Franks participation in  the later ones were mostly smaller, it still gives the impression that he is part of this world whether he likes it or not Frank is getting drawn in, when Johan has no other way of tackling a situation. Frank becomes that easy go-to guy, which really is not fair. But there you go. What a shit world one can live in.

The bad guy who seeks revenge on certain individuals within the law enforcement holds a personal grudge because of how GSI stitched him up. The shit GSI made against him led to a tragic personal disaster in which his wife and daughters were raped/killed/suicide. It was a pretty complicated explanation in a heavy expositional sequence between Frank and Johan, so I can´t really remember the exact details. As a scholar within Falkology I should be ashamed of myself. But I am also a lazy bastard and have also poor attentional skills.

"Blablabla... and then this stuff happened.. Blablabla.
Johan, do you even pay attention to what I am saying?"

After seeing Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice and seeing those two righteous assholes deal with their own ideologies surrounding crime fighting, I sure would like   to see Martin Beck confront Johan Falk in Beck v Falk: Dawn of Swedish justice. Two film genres on confronting different ways to deal with crime.

We get insight into a police organization that series like Beck or Wallander are not very interested in. Those movies are more about the hum drum police legwork. Procedural stuff. And it´s very boring.

At the end of the film, Falk actively helps Frank out of a dangerous situation and in some way tries to redeem his previous actions.

De fredlösa is a very good roundup of what we have learned in Falkology so far about Swedish police work. It is painted with shades of grey and is not a very glamorous depiction. It is a very disturbing depiction of how an organization are more concerned with quick results, but as the heat is turned on, they shift the blame. 

This type of depiction is nothing new to cop action movies. I use Dirty Harry a lot in comparison to Johan Falk, (I fucking love Dirty Harry as you can tell) but those movies are templates from which a certain type of movie operates. They may not make a lot of these types of films anymore over in Hollywood, but look at The Dead pool (no, not the Marvel character), the last Harry Callahan film in which his superiors seem more concerned with media attention. But deals with it in such a shallow way. The movie itself is a sleazy populistic 80´s film. Which makes it definitely fit in with the Dirty Harry canon as the original was a sleazy 70´s populistic film, But here the idea  is dealt more sincerely. How would a police organization functio that would work under such a mandate of appeasing the masses with fast results.. The institutional workings are interesting.

And as it is based on an actual case, one can question the mentality and the pressure that certain institutions are under to deliver, when it is mostly about short sighted easy-to-portray work that media can present.   Is this the kind of police work we are facing in a media hungry world

This shot of Frank at the end of the movie is haunting and beautiful.

It is also set to Bengt Nilssons exceptional score on which I have yet to acknowledge here on this blog.. But his music is an important part of the series and can be both powerful, melodramatic and beautiful at times. A Swedish Hans Zimmer.

Johan Falk will return in Spelets regler

JOHAN FALK-SERIES PART 8 : OPERATION NÄKTERGAL ( OPERATION NIGHTINGALE) THE FALKOLOGY CONTINUES

Previously on Johan falk:

"Next time on Johan Falk-series: part 8: The one with the russian title I never can remember. "

Now:
Shit. Sometimes I  mix the titles up. This and  Organizatsija Karayan. (I had to look that title up and check my spelling for every damn word).  Operation Näktergal  is also one I kind of regard as a lesser  entry in the series. But later events in the series makes this a pivotal chapter in the Johan Falk-saga, And therefore even more important to examine in the interest of Falkology.

Plot talking:

This story centres around human trafficking and prostitutes from the Baltic countries. One of the GSI members, Lasse (Henric Norlén) gets a shot at doing what Johan has been doing for a while; being a handler for an informant. It all goues tits up in the end, which set in motion  a spiral of events unbeknownst to neither GSI or the audience for that matter. 

A lot of the stuff that comes back I will deal with more scrutiny when we come to Lockdown, the next to the very last film. But that is still a helluva long  way to go.

What this movie specifically deals with are personal connections to the individuals stuck in an impossibly dangerous situation. But also extreme unprofessionalism as Lasse falls in love with the female informant Hanna (Anja Antonowicz) , and the tragic events that follows.  She dies, and Lasse sets up a situation which leads to his revenge. More unprofessional and not so great policing at work here. A bunch of GSI cockups. But at this point, who is surprised?

Jibber jabber:

So, the big thing here is that this movie is central to the events that takes place in the third series. It sets up the motivation behind some of the stuff and frankly I think it might be better to wait until Lockdown to fully delve into those aspects. What I instead want to focus on  here is the relationship between Lasse and Hanna .

Lasse has had some dating issues on account of being a cop. He is just too damn frank about it and his collegues questions his judgement on it. "Why do you keep telling the birds you´re a cop,man?" Now being a handler to the polish girl Hanna, she knows he is a cop and probably wont hold it aginst him if he is being nice to her. But he may be too nice to her and ends up getting a bit too close to her. Johan is usually the one we see handling the informant, now that Lasse gets a chance he blows it big time by falling in love with her. Dumbshit. Both Lasse and Johan. Dumbshits. Here is how they both are;


Interestingly, Sophie who is the new temporary leader for GSI, who Johan has a lot of problem taking orders from, doesn´t want Lasse to be a handler as he has no previous experience. But Johan chose to disobey and pick Lasse anyway.  Stubborn asshole. His reluctance of taking orders from Sophie is something that has been portrayed in a couple of films now that Patrik has parentleave.

As Lasse is the focus of the story  it puts former supercop Falk in a situation in which he has to choose how to deal with a sensitive situation that could seriously damage a fellow police officers career. And you could make a case that Johan is to blame for the whole mess as he never saw the bigger picture if he just did what Sophie ordered him to do in the first place.


I like how the first movies Falk was this invincible badass supercop. But now that he is put in a different world he becomes this flawed human being incapable of dealing with the world he now inhabits. He usually have been in full control, but from the first series and one he makes some choices that clearly is not made by some omniscient protagonist that saves the day. At the end he confesses that he may have  made the wrong decision. A decision that was never his to make as he was not in charge, but Sophie was. Here we can see Johans one-man army tactics from previous movies, but here it failed flat as he is maybe out of his league when it comes to this type of police work. I don´t know. But he should have listened to Sophie. God help us if Johan Falk makes Chief rank....

A recurring motif in the series seem to be about failure to get the bad guy. Once again, the bad guy  gets killed, and it becomes a snag in a way. Like in National Target. Which is something I like. Shit not going as planned

There is also some shenanigans with Johan convincing Anja to leave his clandestine operations alone. If I were her, I would have gotten sick of getting all that shit from him by now and tell him to go fuck himself.

(Small personal rant with some more foul language):

I just can´t stand that asshole who orders "beer". Just beer. For him it does not matter as long as it is beer. As a beer lover I can´t defend that ignorant shit. He probably wouldn´t care if it´s Kopparbergs Special brew ( a Swedish  beer  with 10 % alcohol that taste like horses ass)  Oh yeah, No surprise he is the bad guy of this piece. A sleazy scrawny ass cheap knock off-Viggo Mortensen lookalike  kind of motherfucker. 

"Hallo, I am russian asshole who does not care for beer.
Also I am sleazy. Please do not have sex with me"

(end of rant)

This is my favourite part. Lasse and Hanna both have polish backstory. Hanna is raised catholic, not Lasse however as he is raised in Sweden. There is a connection between these two that is pretty sweet, as they have completely different upbringings that sets them apart.  Different religious backgrounds and beliefs. Lasse doesn´t believe in this heaven and hell mumbo jumbo and gets shit in return from Hanna; " So you don´t believe in anything?" To which Lasse responds " I believe in crime and punishment".  The dance continues and Hanna counters with " An eye for an eye? That is very Old Testament"   After that Lasse  has a hard time convincing anyone else but himself. Lasse sees punishment, she sees redemption for what she has done. Good scene. The policeman´s narrow view of crime, never taking in account the persons behind it. Not always bad guy, but humans with reasons behind their actions.

Interesting how the cop seem less sure of himself than she does. That makes you think. Look at these shots.

Hanna seem to be the first woman Lasse truly connect with for some reason, which make this interesting.

The death of  Hanna makes Lasse  take matters into his own hands and sets up the bad guy who killed her just to get revenge, when GSI is clearly after bigger fish. Wow, this organization really does fuck up in more ways than one. This is like CTU in 24. More bombs goes off than  prevented. But here it´s even worse. How many trials have been held of the perpetrators? Few to none. They are usually getting shot and killed by forces that are being supported by the same type of crime fighting "abilities" of GSI. In the end, yes they do save the day, but Jesus Christ do they have this weird way of messing things up needlessly. What a bunch of boobs. 

There are some scenes with Frank Wagner, but it seem more like filler as plot device and nothing that drives anything forward in his personal story I feel. Don´t get me wrong, I love to see Kinnaman. But there is a reason I never can remember whether he was in some of these. Especially this one and Leo Gaut as Wagner is so very little part of the stories. In the end of this one Wagner calls out Johan on being callously treated and used. As he is being in the last act of this film, putting him in jepoardy in a gunfight caused by Lasse. So there is that at least.

"I coulda gat shot"

I can´t  say I like this one as much as some of the best in the series. I do really  like the stuff between Lasse and Hanna and their story and ramifications the events in this one will later have. But as important as it is in the Johan Falk-saga  as lacking it is in action so I don´t think I can recommend it enough as a stand alone must see movie. But as I stated it works as part of a bigger story, sort of. But I´ll get to that in Lockdown. 

I think my poor writing on this one reflects my view on it. Like Lasse I don´t believe in God. But, like Hanna I believe in redemption and  hopefully I will redeem myself  in the future. In later studies of Falkology.

*******************************************************************************

Next time on Johan Falk: Yup, all that fine clandestine police work comes up to the surface  and shit starts to stir up and a lot of ugly history of GSI is being revealed.*sarcastically applauding GSI* Also more Frank Wagner

JOHAN FALK- SERIES:PART 7: LEO GAUT

Previously on Johan Falk:

In National Target Frank Wagner suffers a personal tragedy during what is most likely his last undercover job for GSI.  Johan Falk convinces him helping out one last time. But during this operation, Franks girlfriend is assaulted by the same people he is doing business with, leading to her miscarriage as she was pregnant

Frank Wagner is at this point in his life phasing out of his criminal life, yet Johan isnists of him helping out, not realizing what Frank and his family gone through in previous film. Once again, Johan, the dimwitted cop, fail to understand Franks wish to be left alone.

Now:

In all honestly this  always felt to me like a middle of the road Falk film when I first saw it. It was cool to see Peter Andersson return to the role of the intimidating gangster/ resterantowner Leo Gaut. This time more tired and jaded than before. He was easily my favorite thing about it. He kind of is like Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk. Potential for violence if he lets it. But he has chosen to suppress it instead. Luckily we don´t see him tear off his shirt in this, unless it is meant metaphorical, then yes. That does happen.

Plot:

It opens with a car bombing outside a school. The  G.I Joes of Swedish crimefighting; GSI track the culprit to a shopping mall in Gothenburg. Guns are fired, hostages are taken. The usual stuff in the life of Johan Falk. 

The car bombing at the school was intended to  produce fear into a restaurant owner end extort the shit out of him. Next on that list  to scare is Leo Gaut. The antagonist from the very first Johan Falk-film; Zero Tolerance has served his sentence and is now leading a peaceful life as owner of a tavern/restaurant. He is constantly hassled by the same assholes that explode cars outside of schools. They want part of his business, but he never yields. And as tragic results ensues Gaut goes back to his violent ways and is pushed, like Charles Bronson, into a violent rampage of revenge.

Jibber jabber about the film:

The frictions between the cops and GSI continue, as Johan takes action outside proper procedure, not notifying the cops of the intent, which has the effect of that the case biggest lead ends up in the morgue.  Some fine police work here, ladies and gentlemen. Another fine word would be clusterfuck of policework. 

There is a hostage standoff situation that is repeated later on in the climax. It is reminiscent of the one that sets the events of Zero Tolerance in motion, there are children involved in all the standoffs, for dramatic effect, even in the very first standoff. I think this is very intentional as the film seem to about shedding new light on past relationships.

The opening chase/shootout in the mall feels also very reminiscent in tone from the action opener from the first film. There is a recurrence here which makes this film more interesting, even if it does not drive the overall plot forward very much. It takes place around Christmas just as Zero Tolerance. Or like any good action movie really. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Long Kiss Good Night, Home Alone. You name it

I don´t know, Leo´s stubborn ways leads indirectly to his daughter´s death. His past life still haunts him. It is a bit like Godfather Part 3. The Part everybody hates, when Michael wants to leave the world of crime but it ends in tragedy. Have you seen that film? Underappreciated film I´d say.

Leo Gaut is still caught in the old world of his, even his thinking. If he really wanted to leave the life he led he would have taken the advice from his wife of selling the restaurant and live a quiet life on the coast, but he choose not to listen. 

 Later in the film Falk and Gaut agree to put their differences aside. Leo need Johan to help his family. Ironic, since Leo Gaut once long ago threatened to destroy Johan’s entire family. Obviously it wasn´t Johan’s then, but the circumstances lead to it. Their fates are almost intertwined. And in the long run when we get to The End there might be some stuff worth to be re-examined. Former rivals ending up helping one another.  Not spoiling anything here, but... So maybe thematically  Leo Gaut  fits in, The film seem more episodic in nature as not much plot drives the rest of the series story forward.  But it is more character based, I see now.

After Leo Gauts daughter has been killed by the fire, Falk meets Leo’s wife in the hospital try to question her of Leo’s whereabouts.  We learn that she has no friends left. As a convicted murderer all her friends turned her back against her for still sticking with him

At this point we start to notice for the first time that Johan starts to see things from Leo’s point of view.  Leo wants to get revenge and Falk’s response is”What should you and I have done in a similar situation?" This is surprisingly emphatic of Johan of understanding the mentality of the person who once was his nemesis.  His black and white point of view is a bit shattered.  And past relationships are coming to an end here starting with Zero Tolerance.  Over the course of several films now Johan has had an affair with Anja (as he had in Zero Tolerance) that concludes here, 

I always thought that cheating on his wife Helen (Marie Richardson from Eyes wide shut) signified Johan’s distance from her and his unwillingness and uneasiness of settled family life. She and the rest of the family still lives in Belgium, but now as the family is starting to come together back in Gothenburg and she finds out about it about the same time he finds out she has had an affair as well. Sounds complicated?

Both friends and enemies are both close and afar to one another in this one. There are some good shots in this film as well. Two are worth mentioning. One is Johan’s first scene with Leo in which he is positioned in the background, almost sneaking up on Leo. Leo does the same to Johan in his apartment later on. They are sneaking up on each other in their own habitats. The atmosphere in both sequences are that of uneasiness as both characters are approaching one and another for the first time in years. '

"I smell a cop.."

"Funny.. I don´t smell anything"

As we can see Johan Falk’s final confrontation with Leo is not on e of violence, but maybe acceptance as he does one thing at the end to help his old nemesis. It is a nice connectiion between two films made many years apart.

The beautifully constructed  final scene  in the movie is of Leo evading the police, crashing, lying on the ground dying, close proximity to death he see his dead daughter reaching out to him. This is intercut with Johan and Helen getting closer again. 

At this point in the series the domestic turmoil ends and  Falk´s family is now connected again for the first time in the series. 

I like the juxtaposition between Leo and Johan in this.  It seems fitting that him and Leo almost makes up and at the same time Johan and Helen makes up. But I still feel it is a middle of the road film in the series. It is a good Falk-film, with many really good to great moments, but not my favorite, but I liked it more this time around.

Nest time on Johan Falk-series: part 8: The one with the russian title I never can remember. Important stuff happens. Pay attention!

JOHAN FALK-SERIES- PART 6: NATIONAL TARGET

There is a lot of stuff going on in this film or the series as a whole. But if I would have gone into that, this blog post would have been even longer. I may write a different post  delving more deeply into the relationships and the different goingons one of these days. But for now, let´s stick to some stuff which I think is worth mentioning. It took more space than I expected.  I need to focus my mind. But there is an awful lot I skip through.I want to write about every single aspect, but the text would have been completely scattershot and unfocused if I discussed everything.

Previously on Johan Falk:

Civilian undercover informant Frank Wagner is forced to to take extreme masures in order to makes  his cover intact as a gangster within the organization of Seth Rydell ( Jens Hultén from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation). Now Frank most definitely does not want to continue working for the GSI taskforce.

Plot talking:

A Mr K whose identity is still unknown is responsible for the drug trafficking  (probably among other sleazy things) to Sweden from Estonia. GSI is on his tail. But looses the trail. Not only does that rhyme, but it also means that GSI is in desperate need of superinfiltrator extraordinarire  Frank Wagner, despite him wanting to get out  (yet again). 

The promises that GSI has given to Wagner becomes more difficult to live up to as they are so dependant on his information. But he agrees to help, but this time he gets more emotionally involved, as his pregnant girlfriend by pure accident oversees him talking to a go-between to Mr K. The gangsters beat her up and as a result she gets hospitalized and loses the child in the process which makes Wagner furious. This is all unbeknownst to Johan Falk as the case proceeds. This builds some tension as it drives Wagner to become more vengeful and in the process threatens to blow the case and for GSI to lose the trail to Mr K once again.

More stuff to talk about:

Falk does not get to do a lot of action himself in this film. He does however gets arrested by the German police after tracking Wagner to a meeting with the Estonian mob boss in Stuttgart. It is Wagner who is the active actionpart in this flm. Gets into fistfights and foot chases and in the end gets revenge by killing Mr K. Falk is confronted with a situation in which he needs to bend the law in a pretty extreme way, by hiding evidence to let Wagner off the hook.

In your typical cop movie "super cop" Falk would have won the day, but what has actually being won by killing a high ranking leader in what will be revealed as part of a much larger organization? What information could have been gained from him which would actually lead to building a case and perform proper police work? Who knows. From a movie point of view, the bad guy dies, the movie ends and that is it. 

But what is great about the larger story that is being told here are”what are the consequences in the long run”. The story just does not end with the one guy get ting shot and killed.  It seldom does in real life. 

Scenes to jibber jabber about:

The scene which sets Wagners action in place is a very good one, but also pretty scary. After visiting his girlfriend Marie ( Ruth Vegas- Fernandez) and having an argument ( she does not like him still doing stuff for GSI) , he is confronted in the parking garage by a representative of the Estonian mob and his goon and suddenly a cell phone is ringing from a far. Wagner and the Estonians separates,  goes their own way and Wagner gets ready to get in his car and drive away when he overhears a violent conversation. This is shown entirely from Wagners point of view. As an audience member we know Marie has entered the parking garage, that she stumbled upon their meeting  and  that it was her cellphone that just happend to start ringing.

We now follow Wagners point of view as he moves to the location of the Estonians and him trying to find out what is going on. We follow him to the point in which he sees poor Marie beaten on the floor and his reaction.

It´s pretty effective use of point of view, I feel. We know, but Frank do not yet.  He might suspect however.  And we share his dread as we know and he slowly finds out. The guy threatens to kill her and her family, unbeknownst to him that Wagner is her family. Standing right there. This made me think of Death Wish and similar revenge movies. Usually  the protagonist seeks revenge for he is not there of the brutal act. The man is missing, not protecting his family for whatever reason, because if he was there you would not have a movie, he would have killed the bad guys right there and then. The End. Here Wagner must control his emotions in order to do what he needs to do. Even if it is his girlfriend lying there.  It is a fucked up situation to be in and the situation wouldn´t have occurred if he had refused to help GSI.

The following scene is also powerful. Marie lies in hospital and Frank is standing outside down below talking to her through the cell phone. Here we see visually the momentary distance Wagner has to his girlfriend but at the same time they are near and intimate with each other.

She is there in the distance, we as an audience lies closer to Frank and perhaps feels his momentarily disconnect as he needs to do what he has to do. 

I have never lost a child and don´t know what it is like. I have heard that couples can break up or disconnect with each other after losing a baby.  Maybe this is some kind of visual clue to their emotional state, I don´t know. I am probably full of shit. I have a bachelor degree in film. I do this kind of shit. Speculate wildly. This is not exact science.

But I think I made a case why this sets the film up in a great way. We feel for Frank now. As I have previously stated; killing  the guy may jeopardize the whole case. A neat twist on the revenge aspect which usually is handled in a more populistic and sensationalistic way in action films.  Here there may be consequences for taking revenge.

Although I wouldn´t mind seeing Joel Kinnaman starring in a Death Wish remake.

Next time on Johan Falk-series: Part 6: We see the return of familiar faces from Zero Tolerance. Are Johan Falk and  Leo Gaut really going to put their differences aside? Who the hell knows? Except people who´ve seen the movie, I guess.