In Order of Disappearance (2014)

This is a Norwegian film reflecting Skandi noir at its best and most gory.

The story is relatively simple.

A noble citizen Nils Dickman (Stellan Skarsgard), who clears the snow with his snow plough , receiving a civic award for his work ,  has his son shot as he is mistakenly assumed to have stolen drugs from a gang who use the airport where he works to courier drugs.

To disguise the killing he is injected with cocaine and the police assume it’s an overdose and will not investigate.

So he takes the law in his hands and one by one he eliminates the gang, hence the title.

The drug baron known as the Count (Pal Svere Hagen) is a sinister vegan and one of the scariest villains I have come across in film.

It’s a bit like Charley Varrick when a small-timer has to outwit a major criminal.  A rival narcotic gang of Serbs are initially thought by the Count to be responsible and a turf war develops. Each killing is depicted bya cross withe name of the victim  under it  .

The killings are gory and there is that staple scene of every Skandi noir, the identification of the cadaver in a mortuary. Just like very French film has to feature a dinner so Skandanoir must have its mortuary .

You are howeever treated to some beautiful winter scenes of Norway. The contrast between the scenryand the violence in countries with a welfare state and social conscience is another feature of Skanda noir

The tempo is high octane with the ever present thought of who will be the last killing, the ageing Serbian drug Lord Papa, played by the great German actor who starred as Adolf  Hitler in Downfall (Bruno Ganz), the Count or the snow plough driver.

I’m not telling.

You have to watch it.