By Steve Austin
Comedy is such a subjective medium - what one person finds hilarious can often be of the deepest offence to another.
It’s so easy to offend as many people as possible, but highly difficult to keep a large majority of an audience laughing throughout.
Based on the long-running Danish TV series, Klown: The Movie walks this tight-rope of subjectivity and succeeds seemingly on every single level to keep the laughs coming while being broad enough to appeal to a wide adult audience.
The comparisons to both Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Hangover bandied around by most critics merely sum up the practical scenarios of the movie, without really revealing that contained within are some of the best written characters, ferocious bravery in performances and an excellently made film the leaves an audience almost sore with laughter.
Frank Hvam plays Frank (could this be an extension of himself, blown up large?) who is so dimly unconnected from adulthood that he can barely grasp the basics of relationships and the subtleties of the world around him. Caspar (Caspar Christensen), is his best mate and a complete womaniser, who invites Frank on a weekend canoeing trip to get away from the everyday by visiting a beer festival.
Everything is thrown out when, to prove his worth as a father to long suffering wife Mia (Mia Lyhne), he kidnaps his 12-year-old nephew Bo (Marcuz Jess Petersen). Caspar is not happy with this arrangement, having planned a debaucherous weekend and it all proceeds to spiral out of control from there.
What ensues is a series of physical comedy set-pieces, misunderstandings, slapstick and verbal gymnastics that catapult this feature well beyond its seemingly mundane set-up.
Fair warning though: just when you think it’s going to go as far as it can with ridiculous offensiveness, it steps over that line, dances on it and wees all over it.
Much of it seems semi-improvised by the core cast, but controlled by some excellent direction (Mikkel Norgaard), fast paced editing and well shot hand-held camerawork.
I have not laughed so hard while watching a movie in a very long time. In fact, a friend and I managed to sustain the giggles right through the closing credits and were still guffawing out onto the street afterwards, sides aching, tears rolling down our cheeks.
Pure, sublime, scatalogical everyman comedy for a very grown-up audience who think they’ve seen it all. This absolutely tore the roof off The Civic and is one of my highlights of the festival so far.
Klown
:: Director: Mikkel Nørgaard
:: Starring: Frank Hvam, Casper Christensen, Marcuz Jess Petersen, Mia Lyhne, Iben Hjejle, Lars Hjortshøj, Bent Fabricius-Bjerre, Jørgen Leth, Mads Brügger
:: Running Time: 88 mins
:: Rating: R16- offensive language, drug use, sexual content may offend
:: More information: Click here
