Let me start this out by stating a fact that will be very prevalent throughout this review. I really really REALLY really direly truly WANTED...to love this movie. Unfortunately, I had trouble wholly embracing it. Even when tears of pure mirth pricked my eyelids, I found my mouth-twisting into a half-frown again and again. Something was off dear readers, and even now I'm not wholly sure what.
Norwegian Ninja (Or Kommandor Treholt Ninjatroppen, depending on your nationality or the country your viewing it in) is based around the Arne Treholt scandal that rocked Norway in the eighties. Arne Treholt was a politician and diplomat who was accused of treason, leaking information to the Soviets near the final years of the Cold War. Despite slightly vague evidence, he received 20 years in prison and to this day is the subject of much political debate in Norway.
Now, this film supposes that in truth, Arne Treholt was the leader of a ninja force established in the 60's (Or thereabouts, judging from the commune hippy-dippy style of the island they inhabit) to defend Norway against threats from within and without. The film opens with them investigating U-boat sightings and eventually uncovering the plot that will eventually find Arne Treholt framed and sent to jail and Norway in flames, ripe for American take-over. (I kid you not)
Now, one thing this movie definitely has going for it is how well it knows it's bad ninja movies. You've got ninja's vanishing in smoke-clouds at least once every ten or fifteen minutes. Shuriken's are wagged around in camera, and there's even an initiation ceremony to become a REAL ninja.
The ninja's themselves are pretty much new-age hippies. They reside on an island (Defended by a Feng-Shui barrier) and spend their time frolicking with animals and growing their own food while preaching the benefits of being "One with the Cosmos". As you can tell, the sense of humor is pretty wackadoo.
You also get the sense that the director (Thomas Capellen Malling) is having a blast poking at otherwise serious-faced politics. An extra dimension is added to the film somewhat in that recent news concerning the actual case points to the possibility of Treholt actually being framed, lending something almost sweet to the film, as though it's a love-letter to a scapegoat. A big "Fuck you" to a government that lynched one of it's own servants.
Unfortunately, these otherwise neat things are somewhat hampered by a perhaps too self-conscious sense of humor and a blatant aping of a certain other directors style.
This movie absolutely REEKS of Wes Anderson. Now, I bloody well adore Anderson's films (I almost own them all, ALMOST!), but unfortunately for Norwegian Ninja, it runs perilously close to taking entire scenes from "Life Aquatic" and even stealing a shot from "Darjeeling Limited". Now, I'm all for people taking more cues from Anderson's film-making (Not that I can imagine them doing so without it being blatantly obvious, the man's films being so idiosyncratic), but Norwegian Ninja simply seems to imitate utterly rather than take inspiration.
The film also suffers from something I found Rodriguez's "Machete" and pretty much ever Tarantino movie suffers from. It's far too self-conscious of what it's trying to do. In general, what makes B-movies hysterically funny (Or sometimes unbelievably cool) is how sincerely they were trying to be good. Or rather, how little the producers cared for the quality of the film. Most films that seem to clutch for the grindhouse ideal, that oh so intangible "Je ne sais-quoi" that turns the most well-intended epic into an unintentional comedy of seeming genius, just fall flat. Norwegian Ninja doesn't exactly fall flat, but it's a far-cry from the likes of "Black Dynamite" or "Hobo with a Shotgun". Hell, even "Dead Snow" (Same folks produced Norwegian Ninja) is like, a bajillion goddamn times better.
It doesn't help the films case that the actors themselves seem far too aware of how cheesy the film is intended to be. I mean, I know the sodding thing's a comedy, but it hardly seems funny when one keeps expecting the actors themselves to break down snickering about the sheer absurdity of what they're featured in!...Or maybe that's just me being a nit-picker...ah bollocks.
All in all, it's with heavy heart I say this, but Norwegian Ninja doesn't quite make the cut. It's funny, but in a mildly off way. I truly wish to believe that the film has a heart to it of sorts, in fact I'm sure it does. I just feel that it beats irregularly, making for a movie that would've been possibly better suited to a short comedy sketch rather than a feature. Still, if you're hungry for a quirky and utterly ridiculous comedy, it couldn't hurt to check this out. It definitely puts to shame 90% of all the other comedies you'll find currently stocked at your nearest video-store.
3.5/5
On a more positive note, the soundtrack was pretty bitchin'.
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