Per Frisch Movies

A crook trying to go straight finds that it isn't as easy as he'd hoped in this comedy drama from director Hans Petter Moland. Ulrik (Stellan Skarsgård) is a nice guy with a vicious streak that he lets out only when he has to -- he's just been released from prison after serving 12 years for murder, but the guards grew to like him so much that they even gave him going-away presents. Ulrik used to work for mob boss Rune Jensen (Bjørn Floberg), but he isn't eager to go back into a life of crime, hoping instead to patch up his relationships with his son, Geir (Jan Gunnar Røise), now in his mid-twenties, and his former wife, Wenche (Kjersti Holmen). Rune arranges for Ulrik to get a job in an auto repair shop run by overexcited Sven (Bjørn Sundquist) and a place to stay with his sister, Karen (Jorunn Kjellsby), but his underground empire has fallen on hard times and Ulrik is one of the few loyalists he has left. Kenny (Henrik Mestad) was the man who finked on Ulrik and sent him to prison, but while Rune wants Ulrik to kill him, Ulrik doesn't see the point. Ulrik's new life doesn't go as smoothly as he would like, though, and Geir isn't so eager to let his father back in his life -- especially since his wife thinks his father is dead. En Ganske Snill Mann (aka A Somewhat Gentle Man) was an official selection at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Three married women gather to spend Christmas Eve in Olso and then retire to a posh hotel in southern Sweden where they engage in the same kind of conversations, wishful thinking, and petty arguments that characterized the comedy Wives in 1976. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi