After Scandi-noir comes Scandi-blanc, with In Order Of Disappearance, a snowblinded black comedy about a snowplow driver wreaking revenge upon the drug dealers who killed his son. Stellan Skarsgård is Nils Dickman, the stoical Swedish path-clearer who wins a citizen of the year award in Norway (‘You’re the most Norwegian person around without actually being Norwegian’) shortly before embarking upon his shambolic killing spree.
With its mournful chiming musical score and recurrent end-of-scene slo-mo trope, this has all the makings of an angsty nihilistic thriller. But as the original Norwegian title Kraftidioten (‘the prize idiot’) implies, the tone is altogether more absurdist, offering a morbidly wry twist on the traditional Death Wish riff, firmly anchored by Skarsgård’s deadpan, hangdog expression.
As the bodies pile up, so do the nods to the Coens and Tarantino, violent death becoming a laughing matter. Yet while it’s hard not to trace the icy bloodletting and gangster banter back to American cinema, the frostiness of Skarsgård’s performance remains resolutely Scandinavian.
– Mark Kermode, The Observer
