Leynilögga

A first-time director who is also the goalkeeper of Iceland's national football team (and a celebrated hero in his homeland: he saved a Messi penalty at the 2018 World Cup).

A macho super-tough cop who falls in love with his blond and muscular colleague-rival, as they investigate a series of bank heists orchestrated by a diabolical lord of evil, a former model who has moved from the spotlight of the catwalks to the obscure machinations of crime. Let's forget the magnificent Nordic landscapes, rural solitudes, verdant pastures, and slowed-down rhythms of recent Icelandic cinema. A film without sheep, but full of roaring engines, car chases, fistfights, and demented villains.

This is Leynilögga (Cop Secret) by Hannes Þór Halldórsson. An action-comedy that reworks the clichés of Hollywood action cinema with ironic boldness: Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout rethought in Reykjavík, using the bodies of Auðunn Blöndal and Egill Einarsson, the perfect comic couple.

A film that is a reversal and criticism of the machismo inherent in both the narratives of the genre (film) and the dominant social discourse that still pigeonholes desires and genders (human) in over-simplistic, predetermined roles.

And that is how the explosive humor of the film becomes a formidable assist in calling into question all our prejudices, in life as well as the cinema. Goal!

Eddie Bertozzi