Review of King`s Game (aka: Kongekabale)

Introduction

It is weeks before the Danish General Election. Anders Bruun (Jesper Langberg), leader of the Conservative Party, is badly injured in a road accident and there is a gap at the head of the party. The current frontrunner for this post is Lone Kjeldsen (Nastja Arcel), who would also become the country`s first female Prime Minister.

As this happens, a young and ambitious journalist, Ulrik Torp (Anders W. Berthelsen), is granted his dream transfer to Parliament and achieves his ambition of becoming a political reporter despite only being at his paper for only four and a half months. Some cynical colleagues believe that this has only happened as he is the son of a major political figure from Denmark`s past, and his editor Per Vestgaard (Jens Jørn Spottag) does let on that he believes that Torp will have some major connections in the corridors of power due to his fathers influence.

During Torp`s first visit to the Parliament building, he bumps into Conservative spin doctor Peter Schou (Lars Mikkelsen) who unwittingly lets his guard down and hands Torp a story about embezzlement involving Kjeldsen`s husband Mads (Lars Brygmann) and an unbuilt children`s hospital in Cambodia. It doesn`t take Torp too long to find a source within the charity to put his story together and to his surprise gets front page billing from Vestgaard.

The story has quite an impact and political opinion within the party starts to move away from Kjeldsen and swing towards Erik Dreier Jensen (Søren Pilmark). Amidst the early euphoria of breaking a major story and getting all the plaudits, Torp starts to have doubts about the veracity of his scoop. He starts to dig in order to seek out the truth, but faces barriers everywhere he turns before events take a really tragic turn.

Blocked from making any further official investigation, Torp teams up with a cynical political hack in Henrik Moll (Nicholas Bro) in an attempt to halt the seemingly unstoppable bandwagon that looks to propel Drier to the Premiership.

Video

The cinematography by Rasmus Videbæk and editing by Mikkel E.G. Nielsen is superb, some wonderful shots using a variety of palettes.

Audio

DTS soundtrack isn`t overly used as this is more a political thriller than action film, still it is a fantastically atmospheric soundtrack and the surrounds are used to good effect with background noise.

Comes also with a 5.1 soundtrack and subtitles in a variety of languages.

Features

Commentary - screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg are joined by Henrik Ovortrup, Editor in Chief of a newspaper (and also a spin doctor for two years). The three discuss the film and also the political and professional realities that inspired the film in an interesting commentary.

The Real King`s Game - 18 minute featurette on the character influences for the film. All these influences are obviously from with in the Danish political scene so not known to me at all, but you can see the influences clearly from the news footage used of each source. Very interesting and you can make your own comparisons to the UK political scene as well.

The Conservative Party`s Spin On The Movie - a 7 minute featurette on the reaction to the film by the Danish Conservative Party.

Truths About The Movie - 25 minute featurette that takes a look at how close the portrayal of the politicians and journalists in the film are to the real thing.

Niels Krause-Kjær - interview with the author of the novel upon which the film is based. Krause-Kjær is a former journalist and spin doctor, and gives his views on the differences between the two professions.

The Halls Of Power - a look at the production design.

Poster artwork - a slideshow of the various posters designed for the film, with text describing why they were subsequently discarded.

Deleted/Alternative Scenes - two scenes, neither missed as the exposition is covered else-where.

Bloopers - quite amusing even though they`re in Danish…

Trailers

Conclusion

There have been a few solid political thrillers over the years, not too many that are truly memorable though. All The Presidents Men, House Of Cards and State Of Play are those that immediately spring to my mind, and two of those were TV series. Adding to this prestigious list though is King`s Game, which is a solid look at the Machiavellian intrigue of politics, albeit in Denmark.

I knew before I received this film that it had made a strong impression on those who had seen it, but I was surprised by just how gripped I was. The premise is quite simple, it`s a tale of power and the lust for it. All is apparently harmony within the party, but an accident creates a power vacuum and all of a sudden we see politicians positioning themselves to either take the reins themselves or place themselves behind those they think will best serve their own ambitions.

The ensemble cast is excellent. Anders W. Berthelsen and Nicholas Bro are superb in their roles as the Danish equivalent of Woodward and Bernstein. Søren Pilmark and Lars Mikkelsen are also excellent as the wannabe ruthless leader and master of the dark art of spin respectively. There isn`t a duff performance here, but those four in particular deserve the plaudits as they are the central core of the film and make it believable.

Actually, watching this film I was struck by how similar all political systems must be. Some people will always try to change things for the better, but some will go into the `game` purely for the power. Many others will eventually have their heads turned and are seduced by that same intangible aura that absolute power gives off. Despite this film being based on the Danish Conservative Party, I found my self thinking more about New Labour and how it runs itself in Government and also how it brought itself round to making itself a serious proposition in 1997. Mind, the over reliance of spin makes it a very easy comparison and I felt that Schou had a lot in common with spin-meister Alistair Campbell, although Schou seems to be a bit more subtle than the bruiser that Campbell is portrayed as. Danish politics seems rather tame in comparison with ours, but the issues surrounding our power base are much the same. Unchecked by a press that is looking after its own interests more than looking after its audience, the political classes could do whatever they liked with no-one to counter or question them. This doesn`t automatically make our press the good guys though…

A taut and well-written film, recommended.