Hellfjord (2012) User Reviews

Curate's Egg

[silvio-mitsubishi · 6/10 · 6 October 2018]

I watched this with no expectations and was hooked by the opening scene but not convinced by the overall project. The comedy swings between slapstick and very, very dark. The violence is mostly comic book stuff but requires a strong stomach at times. The story is uneven and the pacing unconvincing, with a police officer on a 3-month fixed-term posting who seems totally amazed to find it coming to an end.

I suspect that it meant far more to its Norwegian target audience, but jokes about Swedes, Finns and Icelanders don't translate well into English. The main character is of middle / far-Eastern appearance and this might have been another cultural reference that went over my head. I suspect the cast to be a ready-made comedy group, like Monty Python, the Chaser or Saturday Night Live, as two characters are played by woefully unconvincing actors in pound shop make-up, although this might also be Norwegian humour in action. The location, in the far North of Norway, meant the whole show could take place in daylight, but a few long shadows would have been more convincing.

I stayed with it to the end but feel it could have been comfortably fitted into a conventional six episodes rather than a flabby seven. Overall there were enough laugh out loud moments to keep me entertained, but only just.

A very funny Norwegian comedy that certainly won't be for everybody

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 2 August 2017]

Salmander was an Oslo police officer until and unfortunate and very public incident involving his horse leads to his sacking. He is told that he must do his three months' notice period in the coastal town of Hellfjord; a strange settlement in the Arctic north. Here he meets some strange locals; Kobba, his deputy who has a Finnish mail-order bride; 'Auntie' Kose, his landlady and Joanne, the local journalist who is the closest thing to a normal person there. He isn't there long before there is a murder; his investigation takes him undercover in prison before discovering a heroin smuggling operation, exposing the true nature of the local 'sea serpent' before finally facing Bosse Nova, the Swedish head of the smugglers.

If you are the sort of person who is offended by the sight of somebody trying to shoot a horse, beating it with a tuba till he is splattered with blood then reversing a car over it then this probably won't be the series for you! If you survive this opening scene you will probably really enjoy this surreal over-the-top comedy. The humour is fairly silly and often if rather poor taste but it had me laughing out loud at the bizarreness of it all. The characters are great; Zahid Ali does a fine job as Salander and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal is likable as Joanne however it is Stig Frode Henriksen who steals every scene he is in as Kobba; he is hilarious! Overall I'd definitely recommend this to anybody who wants a good laugh and isn't easily offended.

These comments are based on watching the series in Norwegian with English subtitles.

Hot Scandinavian Fuzz

[ArtfulLodger · 6/10 · 9 July 2017]

This show owes a lot to Hot Fuzz - city cop in small town of yokel characters with something unspoken afoot, and the second half of the first episode even borrows from the very Edgar Wright quick-cut close- ups "getting ready" sequence. Even almost a "greater good" scene.

I'm reviewing early as I'm not sure I'll finish the series. If I hadn't seen Hot Fuzz I may be a little more forgiving, they may have taken this setup to different places, and there will be different gags so maybe I'll stick with it...but if you haven't watched Hot Fuzz, you'll see so many similarities it may feel a little overfamilar

Politically insensitive hilarious and brilliant

[jocajosh · 10/10 · 4 January 2014]

Norwegian comedy? Yup – and it's absolutely brilliant. If you have a weak stomach or are a sensitive New Age person, I would suggest you avoid. But if your sense of humour is wicked, you'll be laughing for days. An Oslo policeman is reprimanded and sent to a remote town for, well let's say an unfortunate incident with a horse. There he meets the oddest collection of locals including his deputy sheriff (Kobba), a Swedish fish factory manager (Bosse Nova) and his landlady (Aunty Cozy) – then the fun begins. For me, Kobba is the character that I love the most. He is old, has a pretty and much younger mail-order bride from Finland and the comments he makes are comedy gold. It's like his brain is set to "retarded" and his mouth to "say the most inappropriate thing you can". I highly recommend this!

Not for the simple minded...

[hemmetti · 10/10 · 15 February 2014]

First when I started to watch this TV series, it was bit slow and well... I didn't know what I was watching, bit like what? Is this supposed to be funny? I'm from Finland, so I have seen many Nordic TV series where people just stare each others for about minutes and then say something lame. After watching the 3 first episodes I was still confused. Should this be funny or boring? Then I slowly got it. The show is the most funny black comedy that makes you think all of the time "Is this funny?" , "Should I laugh here?". When I got my Heureka! moment, I have been laughing my guts out! Almost every scene is an a sketch, sometimes you have to rewind to see what the hell just happened, and that sucks on Netflix, but that what life is in Hellfjord! Well... Pihla Viitala as "Riina" is so good, being a Finn. I think most of the viewers did not understand what Riina said to Kobba when he thought Riina had put an spell on him on the 4th episode, but even I had to rewind that scene to get it. Well, this is one of the most hilarious TV series that I have seen in a while. It is a comedy, but the humor is so dark, that you're really not sure, if you should laugh or yawn ones head off or just die laughing, watching this show. The humor is not-so-American and obvious, more like from silent movies, like Chaplin and Tati. Most hilarious and intelligent dark comedy I have seen in a while!

If you're horse is in pain - kill it

[emphedokles · 10/10 · 31 January 2014]

I have not laughed that much while watching a TV series since a long time. The humor in this series has a lot of monthy pyton style in it. Its from the beginning to the end totally absurd, in a twin peaks way, but way more funnier. Today humor in TV is often just based on total mindless stupidity. Absolutely everyone in the hellfjord series is also stupid to the max. But its done in a very intelligent way and the dialogs are brilliant. The secret star of the series is definitely Kobba. You have never ever seen such a horrible, ugly, bad and unfriendly person that you will like that much. The only thing which i did not like was, that there was way to much puking involved. In my opinion, the best scene in the series was. Setting accidentally the head of a corps on fire, then trying to put the fire out by shooting it with a shotgun.

hotchpotch of immature jokes --- very little substance

[Scrugulus · 5/10 · 15 November 2016]

Hellfjord is a prime example of missed opportunities. It has a great premise, and some suitable actors in its cast, but a number of creative choices (some of them just plain lazy) turn this show into a dead duck. Marketed as a mix between Lilyhammer and Twin Peaks, Hellfjord may have some of the absurdity of the latter, but none of the warmth and wit of the former.

The series tries to score with gross-out scenes and potty-humour - it's like a trip through the brain of a psychopathic 6-year-old. None of this is entertaining, all it achieves is to paint a picture of creative helplessness and to shine a light on the many ways in which the writing in this series lacks true originality. Toning down all the nonsense and toddleresque jokes by at least 30% would have been a start to improve the show, but then the writing would have needed to be better in order to fill in the gaps. Throwing all the potty-humour and every bawdy joke they could think of at the screen, the writers stuffed the script so full of this kind of crap (and similar bad choices), so that there was no room left for any actual humour. The writing completely fails to tap into the rich reservoir of Nordic humour, the subtleties and the oddities of which we all love so much. Very little of this can be found in this show.

The other massive failure in this show is the casting/acting. I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to have the characters of Kobba and Kose played by young people in bad make-up (Stig Frode Henriksen and Maria Bock). The questionable acting and writing choices surrounding these characters aside, it would have improved the show a lot if they had chosen seasoned actors of the same age as those characters. Preferably character actors that could carry these roles through their experience alone.

Only by episode 6 (out of 7) does this show start to become interesting, but by then it has completely changed its tone because it is heading for a dramatic showdown. And while drama and comedy work well together, drama and silliness don't. That change in tone is so sudden and abrupt that it feels like an entirely different show. The final episode then offers us a Tarantino-style shoot-out which is completely undermined by the following scenes which see the show revert to the inane silliness of the earlier episodes.

It is a shame that such a great idea has been squandered by numerous questionable choices in production. Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

Mad as a box of frogs on speed

[tim_dearing-1 · 9/10 · 16 March 2019]

You might watch the first episode of this and be forgiven for thinking it's a simplistic slapstick comedy that doesn't seem to work - but you'd be wrong.

There's a lot to turn you off in this series if your previous idea of comedy is Friends or The Big Bang Theory - not that there's anything wrong with those choices, it's just that if that is your taste, this may a long long long way away from that style.

There is a great deal of thought and side angles to this humour. It's well written, very well acted and packed with ridiculously mad character interaction - non of which I'll cover here for to do so would spoil it for those few who will go on to enjoy this short series. And those characters are fabulous. Each with their own dire flaws and foibles and each acted to perfection.

I urge you to try this series and understand that only ten percent of the people who do will be glad they did. But for those ten percent who's humour this fits with, they'll be forever grateful.

Enjoy.

Bogged down by a terrible script and seemingly nobody taking the production serious.

[imdb-02755 · 1 July 2023]

I really wanted to love this, as a have a strong bias towards Scandinavian media. But man, this mini-series didn't work for me.

The cinematography is incredible boring, to a point where I am not sure anymore that the utterly washed out picture is a stylistic choice or someone forgot to add some contrast back. I had to google screenshots to ensure I didn't accidentally set something weird in my Bluray player. There are a few interesting shots, but 99% of it is soooo flat and boring. So many static talking shots.

The script is even worse. The series spends an entire episode with the main character undercover in prison, and basically nothing of interest happens there. The first 4-5 episodes feel like the plot is on pause and nothing happens. There were so many loose ends that the final episode could not possibly tidy up.

The characters were the worst aspect for me. None of them were consistent, except for Johanne, which I would like to call "Magic Exposition Girl". While our main character is just a bumbling idiot, Johanne is who is doing the actual police work and keeps the thin plot moving at least somewhat forward.

Salmander didn't start out as a simpleton to me, but episodes 2-6 just showed him being mostly an idiot. Only in the last episode he turns into Rambo.

Kobba.... Kobba... where to even begin. A character that flip flops between barely being able to being fed, to being a Pro Marksman. In the next scene he can barely keep awake for 5 minutes, in the next he's a seasoned, cool and relaxed police officer. The make up on him made it also hard to look at him, at times I felt like I was watching Braindead.

Riina, Kobba's.... well, what? Sex slave? Assistant? At first I thought she worked in the police station as an assistent, but then she begins to feed and kiss Kobba... so they are in love? But she hates him. And he hates her. She basically never speaks and has 0 importance to the plot, except for the very last episode where the turns into Resident Evil Woman and mowes down people while dualwielding Uzi's. Suddenly the shy, quiet, (abused?) mail-order bride turns into a vamp. I guess the series needed _someone_ to break up the big endfight between the baddies and the police.

The same goes for pretty much all the characters in this series. None of them, except for Johanne, are consistent or even make sense. Their relation to each other is a mystery to me.

What did I like about this series? Well, the first episode was kind of funny (when Salmander arrived in Hellfjord). But even then, the "everyone smokes here" aspect is never brought up again. Besides the 5 or so main characters, Hellfjord is also devoid of life.