"You tired yet, old man?"
— Strike
In Order of Disappearance (Norwegian: Kraftidioten, lit. "The Huge Moron") is a 2014 Norwegian Black Comedy crime revenge film by Hans Petter Moland. Stellan Skarsgård plays Nils Dickman, an ordinary, upstanding snow plow driver from in the small mountain village fictional town of Tyos, Norway. Nils' quiet life, however, is soon upended, when his son, Ingvar, is accidentally murdered by a local criminal organization via a force overdose in a case of Mistaken Identity, as they actually intended to kill Ingvar's friend Finn.
Due to the nature of his son's death, the local police decide to treat his son's death as an accident. Frustrated with their lack of action, Nils takes matters into his own hands. His quest inadvertently sparks an international drug war between home town boss The Count ("Greven" in Norwegian, played by Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen) and a Serbian syndicate run by Papa (Bruno Ganz). Everyone is out for revenge, and the result is stark, brutal, and darkly hilarious.
A remake, Cold Pursuit, was released in 2019 and stars Liam Neeson, and is also directed by Hans Petter Moland.
This film provides examples of:
- Asian Rudeness: Egil's Chinese wife is rather upset by Nils' presence, but it appears to be justified because she wants her husband to stay clear off crime for good and doesn't want trouble. However, after Egil gets killed, she spits on her husband's coffin and just leaves.
- Banana Republic: The Count brings up the trope when he warns the Chinaman that Norway isn't that. The hitman is rather confused by that term, but the Count goes on.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Nils confrontation with Jappe exemplifies this. When the goon threatens Nils to "go back to his hick village before he gets hurt" and flashes his holstered gun, Nils just takes a moment to step back... Then throttles Jappe repeatedly with punch after savage punch.
- Black Comedy: Sprinkled liberally throughout to leaven the tale of death and revenge.
- Nils' lip sticking to the cold gun barrel when Finn interrupts his suicide attempt.
- "Sunshine or welfare."
- "Please step off the rug."
- Brick Joke: One of the Serbian criminals, Radovan Župan, decides to have some fun on a paraglide flight during their stay at the ski resort. In the ending, he flies down towards the snowplow Nils and Papa are traveling on, and accidentally gets himself shredded to death.
- Church Going Villain: All the Serbian gangsters dutifully cross themselves while speaking about the boss's son, who's just died. It's also implied with the characters in general, each of whom is marked by a religious symbol beside their name (aside from the Count, who's given the Humanist icon), though in many cases that was most probably nominal.
- Death of a Child: First attributed to an unknown drug addiction, then to murder.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Egil gets the pleasure of insulting the Count a bit during their final exchange.
- Disposing of a Body: The criminals that drug Ingvar to death offer a Hidden in Plain Sight variation of this trope by simply leaving his corpse at a train station after making it sit on a bench, making it appear as if he's asleep.
- Nils' method of disposing of the criminals he hunts down is to wrap their bodies in chicken wire and dropping them down a waterfall, explaining that it keeps them down from floating up when the decomposition swells them, and the fish can easily gnaw their flesh through the metallic wire.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Count and Papa both adore their sons.
- Gayngster: Geir and Junior, two of the Count's henchmen are in a relationship, which they keep from the others (who are presumably homophobic). Geir is visibly distraught when the Count suddenly kills his lover for a You Have Failed Me reason, and thus he later calls the Serbians to tip them off.
- Gilligan Cut: The Count gets into a fierce argument with his ex-wife for, of all things, the fact that he doesn't even offer his son a healthy breakfast, feeding him such garbage as Fruit Loops. The Count is highly irritated as he is a vegan. Cut to a shot of his son and dutiful Geir both enjoying a bowl of Fruit Loops.
- Good Is Not Soft: Nils is a loving father and husband, dedicated public servant, and his village’s citizen of the year. He also takes down an international drug operation in revenge for his son's murder.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Nils' brother Wingman tells the Count that he himself was responsible for the henchmen Nils had killed. Wingman flatly states that, because he has colon cancer, he isn’t concerned with what the Count will do to him.
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: All of the gangsters call the hitman "The Chinaman" despite him being a Dane with Japanese ancestry. Even when he's told otherwise by the man, Nils still uses the name.
- Mooks: Charmingly subverted. The henchmen on both sides are richly developed characters (proportionate to their screen time), either with their own motivations, story arcs, or simply by giving each a few minutes of Tarantino-esque banter.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Losing his son drives Nils into vigilantism.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The Norwegian organization is (mostly) racist and xenophobic. The Count, especially, can never remember that his erstwhile business partners are Serbians, not Albanians.
- Psychopathic Manchild: The Count displays such behavior in some of his Hair-Trigger Temper moments.
- Put on a Bus: Nils’ wife exits the movie early on, after his second night of Bronsonian vigilantism.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Nils’ quest.
- Rule of Three:
- The plot is driven by three father-son relationships.
- At the end, the surviving cast members represent the Three Faces Of Adam:Papa, the Serbian boss, is the grandfather/Prophet.
Nils, is the father/Lord.
Petter, The Count's son, is the son/Hunter.
- Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: The Count is convinced that the attacks on his gang are coming from the ruthless Serbian gang that has been muscling their way into Norwegian organized crime. As a result, Nils Dickman's actions spark a Mob War between the Norwegians and the Serbs.
- Scenery Porn: Take Fargo and add European mountain vistas. Even the reflections in this film are gorgeous.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: Plenty, such as the Serbian criminals in a car discussing about people collecting the stools of their dogs when taking them out for a walk. As pointed out in the poster at the top of the page, critics positively compared these scenes to Quentin Tarantino's works.
- Small Role, Big Impact:
- The entire plot is set in motion by Finn, a friend of Nils' son Ingvar.
- Ingvar himself has only a few minutes of screen time, despite being Nils' central motivation for the rest of the film.
- Shout-Out:
- Captioning the name and religion of the dead Mooks, might be a shout out to Battles Without Honor and Humanity.
- Egil asks Nils if he thinks he's Dirty Harry after hearing of his vengeful killings.
- Egil explains that his former nickname "Wingman" came from Top Gun.
- When Svela arrives with a pink gift box containing the head of Papa's son, a Serbian criminal mockingly refers to him as The Pink Panther.
- To Taken: when discussing why his son's death was made to look like an accident, one of the gangsters tells Nils, "...it had to be an overdose. When it's murder, there’s always some father who comes looking for justice."
- Straight Edge Evil: The Count is a crime boss, but also an unhinged health nut vegan who is outraged by his son eating Fruit Loops.
- Stupid Evil: Without any supporting evidence or attempt at parley, The Count decides his Serbian business partners are responsible for his disappearing workforce. He orders a mook killed in retaliation, not realizing the mook in question is actually son of the Serbian mob's boss, who then ''will not'' make peace even when it's offered to him.
- There Will Be Toilet Paper: Nils cuts himself shaving and goes through the rest of his preparation for his award dinner with toilet paper stuck to his face, showing his general lack of familiarity with anything formal.
- Tongue on the Flagpole: Nils' lip sticks momentarily to the barrel of his rifle when he attempts to eat his gun.
- Vomiting Cop: When they discover the Serbian boss' son hanging dead on a sign, one of the village cops blows chunks. This is considerately kept just out of frame.
- Would Hit a Girl: When The Count's ex-wife comes in and harangues him about kidnapping their son (though it was actually someone else) he knocks her out with a single punch.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: After kidnapping The Count’s son right off a playground, Nils does everything he can to keep the boy safe. He tucks him in, reads a bedtime story, and even lets the kid sit in his lap and drive his snow plow. Due to his kind manner, Rune easily comes with him and doesn't resist despite realizing that Nils isn't one of his dad's men. Of course, Nils never planned to hurt him, only lure The Count in.
