Two things impelled me towards 2002’s Old Men in New Cars (Gamle Mænd i Nye Biler in the original Danish). The first was the quirky title, which has no real connection with anything that happens in the film. The second was the name Kim Bodnia at the top of the credits. You might know him as the Danish half of the Danish/Swedish investigative duo in the original The Bridge. Or, maybe, as the Russian control of assassin Villanelle in Killing Eve.
In both he brought a dry, subtle wit to characters it would be easy to overplay and he does something similar here, though hold the “subtle”. There is nothing at all understated about Old Men in New Cars, and this is kind of the point.
It’s really best seen as a collaboration of equals between writer Anders Thomas Jensen and director Lasse Spang Olsen. Olsen has a background in stuntwork and brings that expertise to Jensen’s madly elaborate story about a useless gangster and his even more useless henchmen caught up in several overlapping fuck-ups – reuniting a dying gangster with his long-lost son, who happens to be a murderous psychopath; finding a new liver for the self-same dying gangster; raising a massive load of money to pay off another gangster who wants his money back.
Several heists, one on land, another in the air and eventually at sea, plus a jailbreak, a car chase and a hostage situation with a woman who actually wouldn’t mind dying, allow Olsen to showcase his considerable skills as a stuntmeister. There is one in particular, a mad Wile E Coyote kind of affair involving zip wires and bungees so unlikely to succeed that you have to keep watching to see exactly how it goes wrong, which it does, in ways that are truly spectacular… and incredibly funny.
It’s very cartoonish and wildly improbable and is full of good actors doing great work – alongside Bodnia there’s Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Tomas Villum Jensen as Harald’s dumb-and-dumber henchmen (who now want to give up crime and be pastry chefs), Jens Okking as The Monk, the aged gangster who needs a new liver. Torkel Petersson as Ludvig, The Monk’s psycho son who only has to look at a woman for a murderous red mist to descend. Iben Hjejle as Mille, the innocent bystander caught up in one of Harald’s several heists, so distraught about a bad break-up that she doesn’t mind if she dies. And Brian Patterson as the tragic Vuk, an electrician who when not being smacked about by Harald generally seems to be electrocuting himself.
There is way, way too much plot here, as if writer Jensen were challenging himself to construct a Jenga tower of improbability. But if you’ve seen any of his other comedies – did I mention this is a comedy? – like Men and Chicken, this won’t come as a shock. Piling on the ridiculous is what he likes to do.
Eventually, watching dim people who talk way too much being stupid does wear a bit thin and there are moments when the search for a new liver – which I think is the main plot – gets so lost in the weeds that you wonder if everyone involved has forgotten about it. But through it all Bodnia sails, one moment reminding us of his gangster hardman credentials (he came to mainstream prominence in Nicolas Winding Refn’s twisted debut Pusher), the next that he’s a master of the dead-eyed deadpan.
Recommended? Yes, but it’s a film best watched in beer-and-pizza mode, the same way you’d watch any of that slew of post-Tarantino movies that clogged up the DVD racks in the late 90s and beyond. Skål!
Old Men in New Cars – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024
