The Threat (2004)

In some ways it it is difficult, and even pointless, to try to compete with American action movies. The enormous market, and therefore budgets that an American movie can unleash is simply no match for a movie made in a country of 9 million. I bet the extras-casting bill for Transformers eclipsed the budget of this film.Thus, as a Swedish action movie, this is pretty good. The set up is not bad and this could make a great American remake with an average Joe, working at an airbase in Alaska is presented with the same conundrum as Shanti Roney's character is in this film. A bigger budget would make a better film.As it stands now, this has a great concept, some nice locales, a couple of decent action sequences, a pretty good villain, and a decent twist at the end. Livvakterna and Noll Tolerans are still better in my book, but this isn't half bad.

** HERE BE SPOILERS **Recap: Lasse (Rooney) lives an happy easy life together with wife Inger (Bonnevie) and son Niklas (Zuber). He works at military base Vidsel as a technician. The base is currently conducting tests of new systems and security is tight. For instance has Maj. Haglund (Sauk) from military intelligence arrived. Lasse is kidnapped by Jacek (Cukic) and his entire family and relatives threatened if Lasse does not comply and place a transmitter in some systems that these agents want. This pressure wreaks havoc within his family and when Lasse finally complies, something goes wrong. Base security is alerted and especially Haglund smells foul play. But the tests must go on, and the agents pressure upon Lasse increases. At the same time Haglund is relieved from the case, and goes on a personal hunt.Comments: I feel that there are ambitions in this movie. The general idea in the plot and story is fairly good. There are some small twists and turns. Special effects and use of fighters are extensive and good. Sauk is good as Haglund, but other characters seem to overact to much to leave an credible impression. Then there are numerous small, but sometimes annoying glitches in the plot were it seems better to do something else or the characters actions are inconsistent. Those small minor flaws do add up to a whole flawed impression. However, an entertaining movie and a big improvement compared to Swedish movies from a couple of years ago...5/10

The words "Swedish" and "Action movie" do not mix. That becomes more and more obvious with every attempt made in the genre. This is yet another failed attempt.Lasse Brunell (Shanti Roney) works at a military air base with top secret computer systems. One day foreign criminals threaten to hurt his family if he doesn't do what they tell him. They want the secret equipment and will do anything to get it.This movie has it's ups and downs. And usually in Swedish action movies there are no "ups", just "downs". So i guess something in this movie showed some quality. To begin with the positive remarks i can mention that the movie is technically well made. The footage of planes and helicopters flying are well shot and look very nice. The acting is of very varying quality. Shanti Roney makes a decent performance while Maria Bonnevie is stiff and unnatural as usual (i wonder how long Swedish directors are going to keep using her even though she has the acting skills of a wooden plank?). Stefan Sauk is laughable as the "cool" special forces man who comes to the base to investigate.And what about the action scenes? Well as i said above the scenes of planes and helicopters flying are nice. But aside from that there is not much action to talk about. And that is a common problem with Swedish action films. There is just not enough action going on. Maybe it's a budget problem, maybe it's film-making culture. I don't know, but it negatively affects the experience. Because quite frankly, the story and acting is not good enough for this movie to rely just on that.I rate this 4/10 for effort.

I did not set very high expectations for this movie, which left me pleasantly surprised. The story is a little strange sometimes but overall I think it has an acceptable credibility. The action scenes are rather nice and the accompanying music is used to induce a a bit of patriotic feelings common to US movies. This may not be the best movie ever but it's uncommon for Sweden and I hope to see more similar ones in the future.