Plot: In 18th century Denmark, Captain Ludvig Kahlen – a proud, ambitious, but impoverished war hero — sets out to tame a vast, uninhabitable land on which seemingly nothing can grow. He seeks to start farming crops, build a colony in the name of the King, and gain a noble title for himself. This beautiful but forbidding area also happens to be under the rule of the merciless Frederik De Schinkel, a preening nobleman who realizes the threat Kahlen represents to his power.
Review: You have heard the cliche “they don’t make them like they used to” countless times, but it fits perfectly when reviewing The Promised Land. An epic melodrama that combines elements of survival thrillers, westerns, period melodramas, and historical drama, The Promised Land is a stunning and stark look at one man’s quest to tame the harsh wilderness of the barren northern territory of Denmark while also...
Review: You have heard the cliche “they don’t make them like they used to” countless times, but it fits perfectly when reviewing The Promised Land. An epic melodrama that combines elements of survival thrillers, westerns, period melodramas, and historical drama, The Promised Land is a stunning and stark look at one man’s quest to tame the harsh wilderness of the barren northern territory of Denmark while also...
- 2/17/2024
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
Glowering from atop his mountainous cheekbones, Mads Mikkelsen cuts a hard, intimidating figure in the The Promised Land. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel from a screenplay co-written by the prolific Anders Thomas Jensen, the film casts Mikkelsen as real-life 18-century war veteran Ludvig Kahlen, a proud man of humble origins who hopes to establish the first viable homestead in Denmark’s Jutland heath. Many others have tried to cultivate the barren lowland in the name of the king, but none have succeeded. “The world’s asshole,” one man calls this no man’s land roamed by outlaws and outcasts. One look into Kahlen’s eyes is to know that he’ll succeed at transforming the heath into farmable land.
In large part for the way it paints morality in black and white, The Promised Land is an old-fashioned western, and what it lacks in nuance it more than makes up for in showmanship.
In large part for the way it paints morality in black and white, The Promised Land is an old-fashioned western, and what it lacks in nuance it more than makes up for in showmanship.
- 2/1/2024
- by Steven Scaife
- Slant Magazine
You do not fuck with Mads Mikkelsen.
There are a number of takeaways to be had from The Promised Land, the excellent prestige drama-cum-bloody payback flick straight outta Denmark. The rich in 18th century Scandinavia were as entitled, immoral, and sociopathic as they are in 21st century everywhere. Just because you’ve fought for a country doesn’t mean it will give you a fair shake. Few things fill a big screen better than a grand, historical epic brimming with sweeping vistas, action-packed set pieces, and heroic men and women fighting for love,...
There are a number of takeaways to be had from The Promised Land, the excellent prestige drama-cum-bloody payback flick straight outta Denmark. The rich in 18th century Scandinavia were as entitled, immoral, and sociopathic as they are in 21st century everywhere. Just because you’ve fought for a country doesn’t mean it will give you a fair shake. Few things fill a big screen better than a grand, historical epic brimming with sweeping vistas, action-packed set pieces, and heroic men and women fighting for love,...
- 2/1/2024
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Magnolia Pictures has revealed the trailer for the Mads Mikkelsen-led drama ‘The Promised Land.’
In 18th century Denmark, Captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) – a proud, ambitious, but impoverished war hero – sets out to tame a vast, uninhabitable land on which seemingly nothing can grow. He seeks to start farming crops, build a colony in the name of the King, and gain a noble title for himself.
This beautiful but forbidding area is also under the rule of the merciless Frederik De Schinkel, a preening nobleman who realises the threat Kahlen represents to his power. Struggling against the elements and local brigands, Kahlen is joined by a couple who have fled the clutches of the rapacious De Schinkel. As this group of misfits begins to build a small community in this inhospitable place, De Schinkel swears vengeance, and the confrontation between him and Kahlen promises to be as violent and intense as these two men.
In 18th century Denmark, Captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) – a proud, ambitious, but impoverished war hero – sets out to tame a vast, uninhabitable land on which seemingly nothing can grow. He seeks to start farming crops, build a colony in the name of the King, and gain a noble title for himself.
This beautiful but forbidding area is also under the rule of the merciless Frederik De Schinkel, a preening nobleman who realises the threat Kahlen represents to his power. Struggling against the elements and local brigands, Kahlen is joined by a couple who have fled the clutches of the rapacious De Schinkel. As this group of misfits begins to build a small community in this inhospitable place, De Schinkel swears vengeance, and the confrontation between him and Kahlen promises to be as violent and intense as these two men.
- 12/18/2023
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
They don’t make them like this any more, except when they do. Bastarden (disappointingly renamed The Promised Land in English) is a historical epic out of Denmark that has all the virtues of a midday movie remembered from childhood, the kind of thing you watched when your mother kept you home with a bad cold: a setting sometime in the olden days, a lawless frontier, sword fights and a gaggle of delectably evil baddies. Those seamy aristocrats and their henchmen, given to torturing, murdering and raping their oppressed tenants, are just lining up to have the tables turned, giving them a rich dose of their own torturing, murdering medicine. Hooray!
Better still, The Promised Land has one element those midday movies missed, simply because of the time they were made: Mads Mikkelsen. Mads as Ludwig Kahlen, soldier settler in some of the most inhospitable country on Earth, is at his staunch,...
Better still, The Promised Land has one element those midday movies missed, simply because of the time they were made: Mads Mikkelsen. Mads as Ludwig Kahlen, soldier settler in some of the most inhospitable country on Earth, is at his staunch,...
- 9/1/2023
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
“The Promised Land” deserves a sexier title than “The Promised Land”: It’s hard to hear those well-worn words and not expect something as beige and starchy as the spuds grown on its titular terrain. It has one, in fact. The native Danish title for Nikolaj Arcel’s film translates as “The Bastard” — which has the advantage of applying, in different senses, to both its male principals, and rather better captures the spirit of this lavishly upholstered historical romp, which may pose nobly at points, but gradually reveals a heart of pure boys’-own hokum. Notionally rooted in historical fact, but embellished with storybook romance and flouncing cartoon villainy, this roundly enjoyable Venice competition entry finally owes all its residual gravitas (and at least half its considerable handsomeness) to the expressive woodcut visage of one Mads Mikkelsen.
Funny thing about that face, with its razored planes and coolly sloping...
Funny thing about that face, with its razored planes and coolly sloping...
- 9/1/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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