KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND (Marius Holst). 120 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (March 16). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNN
The most memorable thing about King Of Devil’s Island is the cold. The period drama about a youth correctional facility on a Norwegian island is replete with grey, snowy landscapes and frigid air visible every time an actor breathes. The fact that the film screened for critics in an unheated theatre made watching it downright immersive.
Apart from the wintry conditions, there’s nothing particularly new about this competent but inelegant prison drama, at least not to an audience familiar with Jules Dassin’s Brute Force or The Shawshank Redemption.
Based on a true story involving a 1915 riot that’s clumsily recreated here, the film follows the relationship between Erling (Benjamin Helstad), a rebellious new inmate who may be guilty of murder, and Olav (Trond Nilssen), an obedient ward on the cusp of release. Though they don’t jibe from the get-go, the teens find a common enemy in a corrupt prison system that fosters brutality and sexual abuse under the rule of a morally unsound governor (Stellan Skarsgård, typically good at being ominous).
Helstad’s Erling is a one-dimensional, compassionate brute, a stock character whose righteousness makes him easy to root for. More original is Nilssen’s Olav, who personifies the broken humanity in a totalitarian system, making the film worth watching.
Just bring your mitts.
