A winter road movie

Lapland Odyssey (2010)

A good Finnish comedy is quite a rarity, so I didn't have my hopes up for this one either. That's why I skipped it's theatrical run and waited for the DVD release. Well I must say I shouldn't have done that as this really surprised me. This is by far the best Finnish comedy I've seen in the last 10 years or so. It's a story about a man called Janne who is an unemployed slacker wallowing in self pity. When his wife gives him an ultimatum that he needs to get them a digibox (a device needed to watch digital TV broadcasts on analog televisions) before the next morning or she will move out and leave him. So Janne and his two friends set out on a quest to find the digibox, but it turns out it's not that easy when you're in the arctic circle. I'm not going into the story any more than that, it's quite an adventure and the style is a comedic road movie. There were actually many things I didn't like in the movie, but most of them I can look past as the feeling of the movie is so great. The acting could have been a bit better and the northern dialect they were trying to speak didn't sound too good. It sounded like southern people talk it, but for anyone outside Finland that shouldn't matter at all. Every character in this movie is overly stereotypical, but then again it kind of fit the crazy adventure. Even though it makes fun of many Finnish traditions it's made in quite an universal way so it really doesn't matter if you wouldn't know anything about Finland when watching it. That's another thing about the movie that I first thought was a problem, it imitates the Hollywood buddy comedies and road trip movies, but then again it still remains quite original avoiding many of the downfalls of the others. So yes I liked it, it's far from perfect, but it made me laugh and kept me well entertained, even managed to get me into a good mood and that was more than enough worth the watch.
80%