Deliver Us From Evil

This is about the 2009 Danish film, not the 2014 American horror of the same name.

It is a bit of a confusing film. Not in terms of plot, that is quite straightforward. But in terms of what it is trying to say. To me the message wasn't much more than "people living in small towns are violent bigots".

SPOILERS

We start with some narrative explaining that Lars is a bit of a shit. This isn't really required, since we can see that straight away... and nothing happens in the film to change our minds. At the end he does appear repentant but it is so unconvincing and I didn't buy it for a second. So the film clearly isn't about any sort of journey for Lars.

OK. So Lars drives a truck, drinks, phones, smokes, throws his lighter down in disgust at his girlfriend not answering the phone and then looks for it on the seat / floor. None of this would normally matter since he's on a main road that no-one else uses. Except today Anna is on her moped carrying hymn sheets to her friend's house. Yes, Lars hits Anna while he's not looking where he's going.

He gets out of the truck and when he sees who he's killed he drags the moped and body off the road. Then he wipes down the truck and drives off.

Next we learn that Anna's husband is Lars's boss. And worse, he is ex-army. And worse, he has a bodyguard who is bigger than the proverbial brick shit-house. Probably not surprising that Lars was scared then.

Lars then goes out of his way to set up a Bosnian refugee by getting him to drive the truck back to the depot along the same bit of road where he'd hit Anna. Just for good measure we also see Lars treating his pregnant girlfriend really badly. So now we know he hates immigrants and women. Oh, and also his brother who got out of town, made something of himself and then returned to the family home after their father's death.

All of this is reasonably well done. There are some interesting shots. The scenery and lighting are excellent. We get the message that Lars is nasty and his brother is nice.

But then Anna's body is discovered and everything falls apart. Her husband loses the plot and actively prevents anyone from calling the police. Instead he goes to get his gun(s) and stomps off to the local fair with his giant bodyguard to lynch Lars... so I guess there's only one vehicle in the whole area which could have been responsible.

Lars successfully deflects the blame at Alain (the Bosnian) who gets beaten up and is only saved by Lars brother Johannes. Johannes takes Alain back to his house, somehow escaping the angry mob who know where he lives so it's a short-lived escape.

The only other sane person in the village at this point, the doctor, shows up to help but gets shot by Anna's husband when he tries to call the police. The mob try to break into Johannes house, but he fends them off with a nail gun!

At this point I understand that the mob are mindless and Anna's husband has lost it. But the film keeps laying it on ever thicker in case I'm still unsure. The police (both of them) finally figure out that something is going on and trace the doctor's phone to Johannes's house. When they get there Anna's husband shoots them... fat lot of use they were. But this shocks most of the mob into running away, just leaving Anna's husband, his bodyguard, Lars and Lars's mates.

By now Johannes's wife is scared enough to suggest that maybe Johannes shouldn't sacrifice his whole family for one Bosnian guy that he doesn't even know that well. He disagrees. So she decides that the mob will probably let her and the kids go and leaves.

At this point we get stung with the twist. Alain confesses to Johannes that he had been on the road that morning and had seen Anna. She only wanted to comfort him but he hugged her a bit too hard, she fell down and died. OK. So Lars didn't kill her, she was already dead.

Back to Johannes's wife. Her plan to leave doesn't go so well and the mob attack her, but she gets away when Johannes appears at the door and they go after him again.

What are we learning here? Nothing, it is just mindless. At this point Lars thinks things have gone too far (he has a crush on his brother's wife and is also quite fond of his nephew and niece) so he finally confesses to Anna's husband that he was driving the truck. Oh, the irony now that we know Anna was already dead [NOT].

At least we are near the end. Anna's husband goes to shoot Lars but he's run out of bullets. He asks his bodyguard to get more but he refuses because Lars's girlfriend is pregnant and the child should have a father. Hmmm, at least the big guy has some standards.

Disappointed by the end of the lynching, Lars's friends decide that the only fun left is to run after Johannes's wife and rape her... so they do. Just so we know that they have no standards at all... what they think Johannes's wife has done to warrant this is unclear. All we need to know is that they are nasty and therefore deserve to die when Alain turns up and kills them.

Despite most of the town's tough guys now being dead, Johannes decides to leave the family home. So he packs up the family and they leave. Followed by Lars and his girlfriend on a motorbike.

The film ends with the narrator walking along the road telling us that this is the end of the story.

So what happened to Alain? What happened to Anna's husband? These are ultimately minor issues compared to wondering what the film was trying to say. Mobs are bad? Ex-army guys with guns and big bodyguards aren't to be messed with? Johannes should never have gone back to his home town?

I can't help thinking that it's the last one. If Johannes hadn't been there and tried to do the civilized thing then the crowd would have just lynched Alain and had done with it. Simple solution for simple folk. What kind of message is that?