Lennart Hjulström Movies

2003  
 
Written and directed by Anders Nilsson, Den Tredje Vagen is the Swedish filmmaker's third and final film in his trilogy centering on tough cop Johan Falk (Jakob Eklund). This time around, Falk has decided to seek out a more peaceful life. He's left the police department and intends to move away from the city. Things don't go quite as planned, however, and Falk once again finds himself embroiled in a fast-paced, bullet-riddled adventure. Released as The Third Wave in English-speaking markets, Den Tredje Vagen was preceded by 2001's Livvakterna and 1999's Noll Tolerans. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Jakob EklundIrina Björklund, (more)
2001  
 
Jacob Eklund returns as hard-bitten cop Johan Falk in this sequel to the thriller Noll Tolerans. After causing a commotion with his last assignment, Falk has been given a desk job, which hardly agrees with his personality, and he ends up accepting an offer from an old friend to buy into a private investigation agency. Another friend of Falk's, Sven (Samuel Froler), purchased a business in Estonia, and when local gangsters attempted to pressure him into paying protection money, Sven retained the services of Nikolaus Lehmann (Christoph M. Ohrt), a burly private eye, to throw them off his trail. However, Lehmann does his job all too well, murdering the racketeers, and then threatening Sven and his family. With no where else to turn, Sven asks Falk to help him deal with the crazed Lehmann; Falk agrees, but soon realizes he's dealing with a more dangerous man than he imagined when Lehmann kidnaps Falk's wife Jeanette (Lia Boysen), and then releases her with a time bomb locked around her neck, demanding that Falk hand over ownership of his detective agency to Lehmann. Livvakterna was one of the first films shot using Sony's Cine Alta digital video system, which records images at 25 frames per second in order to conform with the speed of motion picture film in Europe. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Jakob EklundSamuel Fröler, (more)
1999  
 
Anders Nilsson debuts with this taut Swedish action thriller about revenge and justice. Johan (Jakob Eklund) is a two-fisted Gothenburg cop who finds himself in a shoot-out with jewel robbers. After the smoke has cleared, one robber, shot by his accomplice, and an innocent bystander, are dead. Three witnesses, including Helen (Marie Richardson), identify thug extraordinaire Leo Gaut (Peter Andersson) as being the dead crook's trigger-happy colleague. Gaut soon threatens the three witnesses, and only Johan, the badge-wearing hero, can save them. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Jakob EklundMarie Richardson, (more)
1996  
 
This emotional Swedish drama chronicles the gradual healing process of a wife whose husband was killed in a plane crash. Most of the story is based on the widow's memories. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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1992  
 
Scripted (but not directed) by Ingmar Bergman, Best Intentions is a multilayered backwards glance at the courtship of Bergman's own parents. Henrik Bergman (Samuel Froler) is a struggling theology student in the year 1909. His intended, Anna Aakerbloom (Pernilla August, who married director Bille August while the film was in progress) is from a well-to-do family. Despite the expected class differences and personality clashes, love-or at least mutual understanding-prevails. But after a harsh, spare few years as the wife of a clergyman, Anna yearns for the more bountiful pleasures of her family home. Bergman writes himself into the proceedings as a mewling infant. The current three-hour theatrical version of Best Intentions (original title: Den Goda Viljan) was simultaneously prepared as a six-hour TV miniseries, which ran in Europe, Scandanavia, and Japan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Samuel FrölerPernilla August, (more)
1991  
NR  
Based on a true story, the bleak period piece Oxen was co-written and directed by Ingmar Bergman's longtime cinematographer Sven Nykvist. In the small village of Småland in the late 1860s, Helge Roos (Stellan Skarsgård) works as a farmer on an estate belonging to Svenning Gustafsson (Lennart Hjulström) and his wife (Liv Ullmann). Plagued by a terrible famine, Helge illegally kills one of the Gustaffson's last oxen so his own family can eat. He and his wife, Elfrida (Ewa Fröling), feel guilty about it, but the meat keeps them alive through the winter. When he tries to sell the hide in the spring, a clergyman (Max Von Sydow) finds out and encourages him to confess. The judge sentences Helge to a life of manual labor at the state prison for his crime. When he is finally pardoned and released after six years, he returns home to Elfrida to find out that she has been supporting the family by performing sexual services, which has resulted in the birth of another child. In the 1970s, Von Sydow and Ullmann appeared together in a set of films also dealing with the Swedish famine in Jan Troell's The Emigrants and The New Land. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Stellan SkarsgårdEwa Fröling, (more)
1990  
 
Inger (Helena Bergström), a single mother, has decided to return to her father's home from her life in Stockholm and sort out her life. Unfortunately, her father has grown restless, too, and is planning to sell the family house and move away, so she cannot stay long. To pass the time, she hangs out at the local dance hall. There, she dangles one man on a leash while she courts the drummer in the dance-hall band (Carl Kjellgren). She thinks that theirs is a romance beyond all others. He thinks of it merely as a pleasant affair. Eventually, she figures that out and moves back to Stockholm, and regrets stringing the second, nicer, man along. There was something epochal in the meeting of these two people however, and the band members recognize that something important has changed. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Helena BergströmJan Mybrand, (more)
1989  
 
This international thriller is allegedly based on a true incident in which Israeli secret agents bearing Lebanese passports killed a Moroccan guest worker living in Sweden because they believed he was a Palestinian terrorist. In the story, Hamilton (Stellan Skarsgard), a Swedish naval officer, is recruited by his country's secret service to investigate the suspicious killing of an expert on Middle Eastern affairs. When he discovers that the killer was probably Israeli, he is officially taken off the case. Being a persistent fellow, he refuses to take the hint, and travels to Lebanon to follow up on his leads. This stirs up a real hornets nest, leading to his having a climactic confrontation with Israeli assasins when he gets back home in Sweden. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Stellan SkarsgårdLennart Hjulström, (more)
1987  
 
This biting satire of high-level military corruption concerns the problems of a small town located next to a training camp. Army regulars make a quick profit by replacing an old engine of a farm vehicle with the new one stolen from the base. When the group is confronted by their commander, they cut him in on the profits and avoid being disciplined. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Thomas HanzonTomas Fryk, (more)
1986  
 
This police thriller is set in a Stockholm precinct and centers on the issue of drugs and police brutality. Three male cops (Stefan Sauk, Marvin Yxner, and Sven Holm) and one patrolwoman (Pia Green) play fast and loose with their billy clubs against any addicts, punks, or alcoholics that might be disturbing the high-rent district near their precinct station. The station Captain has his job cut out for him trying to keep the four rogue, over-the-edge cops in line, as well as managing the renegade chief narc officer, and still having time for his trombone and love life. According to this film and Stockholm statistics, charges of police brutality are commonly dismissed (in 1986, 95 out of 100 such cases in Stockholm were thrown out). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Sven WollterStefan Sauk, (more)
1986  
 
Gunilla Nyroos plays celebrated Swedish author and heroine Moa Martinson in this historical film biography. She marries a hard-drinking miner and the union produces five children. Two of the children die, and her husband commits suicide by blowing himself up with dynamite. But Moa finds solace and a kindred spirit in writer Harry Martinson (Reine Brynolfsson) after her unhappy first marriage. Moa and Harry both becomes famous authors, with Harry winning the Nobel Prize for literature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Gunilla NyroosReine Brynolfsson, (more)
1985  
 
Add My Life as a Dog to QueueAdd My Life as a Dog to top of Queue
In 1959 Sweden, young Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) lives with his dying mother and his nasty older brother. He survives all of life's knocks by comparing himself to those who are worse off--such as Laika, the little Russian space dog who was rocketed to his death and had nothing to say in the matter. Ingemar begins to identify with Laika more and more as his mother's health deteriorates, at times dropping to all fours and baying at the moon. When his mother is advised to get some peace and quiet away from her children, Ingemar is sent to live with his loveable uncle and aunt. For the first time, the boy is surrounded by relatives and classmates who pose no threat and who genuinely like him. He even has a sexual awakening. When his mother dies, he no longer rationalizes his misfortunes by comparing himself to those less fortunate; from now on, he can conjure up pleasant memories of his summer away from home to sustain him through the hard times. My Life as a Dog (Mitt Liv Som Hund) is based on the autobiographical novel by Reidar Jonsson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Anton GlanzeliusAnki Liden, (more)
1983  
 
This flawed biographical drama captures the turbulent love affair between the famous Russian mathematician Sonya Kovalevsky (Gunilla Nyroos) and her (unrelated) compatriot Maxim Kovalevsky (Thommy Berggren), while both were teaching at a university in Sweden (she was Sweden's first female professor, from 1883-1891). Although Sonya's brilliant mind could work easily with partial differential equations, she was alternately wildly jealous or angry at Maxim because he insisted they never marry, and in the end, he was to prevail. Sonya died of pneumonia at 41, leaving behind a sad and somewhat neglected daughter, well-interpreted here by Lina Pleijel. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Gunilla NyroosTommy Berggrren, (more)

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