Data

As discussed in section 2.3., there are very few American remakes based on Nordic movies (especially larger Hollywood productions), and thus the number of possible movies for this

study was quite small. Out of this small corpus of potential movies, the topic of masculinity emerged as a recurring motif, thus leading it to be the point of interest for this thesis. There were a few potential movies to be analysed here, but the scope of this thesis limited the number of movies to four, including both the original Nordic movies and their American remakes. The movies chosen for analysis are a Norwegian movie titled Kraftidioten (2014) and its American remake Cold Pursuit (2019) as well as Danish movie titled Brødre (2004) and its American remake Brothers (2009).

Other potential movies included the Swedish films Män Som Hatar Kvinnor (2009), remade as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and Turist (2014), remade as Downhill (2020). The former of these two, based on the popular series of books by Stieg Larsson, was excluded as much attention has already been paid to the books and this pair of movies. For example, a book edited by Donna King and Carrie Lee Smith (2012) already focuses on the books as well as the cinematic adaptations, discussing them from the point of view of gender and feminism. Meanwhile, Turist and Downhill were left out of the study as the American remake was still unavailable at the moment of writing.

4.3.1. Kraftidioten and Cold Pursuit

The Norwegian film Kraftidioten and its American remake Cold Pursuit, follow a plough truck driver, called Nils Dickman in the original and Nels Coxman in the remake, who is awarded as the citizen of the year by his community where he lives with his wife and son. However, his son is killed by a local drug gang when the boy’s friend steals cocaine from the gang. Although the other man escapes, the main character’s son is killed and his death is made to look like an overdose. When the police do not do anything about his death, Nils/Nels becomes depressed and is close to killing himself when his son’s friend approaches him and tells the truth about his son’s death. Because he does not get help from others, Nils/Nels decides to hunt down the criminals himself and begins to kill the gangsters one by one while trying to find out who is in charge of the gang. While Nils/Nels is secretly killing the criminals, his wife becomes distant and eventually leaves him.

Nils/Nels gets his estranged brother involved in his plan to get revenge and is advised by him to hire an assassin who then betrays him and reveals Nils/Nels’ last name to the villain.

However, the criminals mistake Nils/Nels for his brother, who used to work for the villain’s

father, and kill the brother instead. Along the way, the criminals mistakenly think that their members are being killed by a rival gang and, in revenge, kill one of the other gang’s members, which ignites a war between them. This in turn enrages the leader of the rival gang as one of his kin is killed and he promises to get revenge on the main villain and his goons. During all this, the main villain is in the middle of divorcing his wife and is fighting for the custody of his son, whom Nils/Nels abducts in order to lure out the criminal boss and kill him. The film culminates in a big gun fight between the two gangs that kills all of the criminals, except the rival gang’s old patriarchal leader. The film ends as Nils/Nils and the other gang’s leader drive into the sunset in Nils/Nels’ plough truck, having got their revenge on the film’s main villain.

The original Norwegian movie (titled In Order of Disappearance in English but referred to with its original title here) was released in 2014 and was directed by Hans Petter Moland and written by Kim Fupz Aakeson. The film was remade in 2019 as Cold Pursuit and was also directed Moland; its script was written by Frank Baldwin. The Norwegian setting of the original movie is relocated to Colorado in the American remake. Although both movies have been labelled as thriller, action and crime movies, Kraftidioten is also referred to as a (dark) comedy, whereas this label is not used of the remake⁴. As of the moment of writing, there is no prior research done on either of the two movies.

4.3.1. Brødre and Brothers

The Danish film Brødre, which was remade as Brothers in the United States, tells the story of a man, called Michael in Brødre and Sam in Brothers, who works for the military and leaves to serve in Afghanistan. Before leaving, he and his family reunite with his brother Jannik/Tommy who is released from prison after assaulting a bank employee. Soon after arriving in Afghanistan, Michael/Sam’s helicopter is shot down and he is assumed to be dead. Back in Denmark, his wife Sarah/Grace is left alone with their two daughters and a funeral for Michael/Sam is arranged. Meanwhile, Jannik/Tommy becomes close with his brother’s wife and children while trying to get his life on track.

4 The original Norwegian film’s physical release labels the film as “comedy, action, crime”, while the remake’s genres are “action, drama, thriller”. This slight ‘change’ in genre, I argue, is due to the remake’s more exaggerated characters and less realistic and gritty aesthetic, as some of the original film’s dark humour is derived from the juxtaposition of outrageous violence and actions by characters with the film’s realistic look and style.

At the same time in Afghanistan, Michael/Sam is alive and is being held captive with another soldier by the Afghan terrorists who, after some months of captivity, force Michael/Sam to beat the other soldier to death with a pipe. Soon after this incident, Michael/Sam is rescued and returns home to his family. However, he has been traumatised by his experience and is unable to confess what he had done to the other soldier while in captivity. His changed behaviour concerns the others and he also believes that his wife has been unfaithful to him with his brother. Finally, the tension within the family grows, culminating in Michael/Sam destroying the family’s kitchen that was renovated by Jannik/Tommy and his friends.

Jannik/Tommy comes to calm down his brother but is attacked by him instead. The police arrive to arrest the enraged Michael/Sam, who then threatens them with a gun and demands to be shot by the police. His brother manages to calm him, and Michael/Sam is arrested by the police. At the end of the movie, Michael/Sam is visited in prison by his wife and he begins to cry, confessing to his wife that he killed the other soldier in Afghanistan.

The Danish original (also with the English title Brothers) was released in 2004, and it was directed by Susanne Bier. Bier also co-wrote the film with writer Anders Thomas Jensen.

The American remake titled Brothers was released in 2009 and was directed by the Irish director Jim Sheridan and written by David Benioff. The setting of the Danish film is changed to an American small town, but both movies’ main characters leave for Afghanistan, Michael for the International Security Assistance Force and Sam for the US Marines. There has been some prior academic research focusing on and comparing the two movies from the point of view of cultural adaptation (Gemzøe 2013), national identity (Shriver-Rice 2011) and the psychological effects of war in the remake (Shriver-Rice 2013). These three studies will be referred to during the analysis and discussion when necessary.