Unassuming family man Nils (Stellan Skarsgard) works a thankless job, ploughing the snowy streets of a small Norwegian town, acting, as he says, as a “pathfinder – even if I keep finding the same path over and over again”. But when his son is murdered and the death disguised as a heroin overdose, Nils finds himself on a new journey; that of a man with nothing to lose, and a determination to fight his way through Serbian drug-dealers to the sociopathic criminal known only as ‘The Count’ (Pal Sverre Hagen.)
Hans Petter Moland has picked his setting well. The deadpan Scandinavian sensibility also highlights the script’s pitch-black humour.
As the body count rises, a black screen names the victims under a cross, like a macabre video game, Nils is slowly, often ineptly negotiating. As the violence is undercut by this thick layer of dry comedy, the picture is sometimes reminiscent of Fargo, though the bloodshed and tragedy feels darker.
Moland makes intriguing choices when it comes to addressing real pain, showing a grieving mother weeping through a window a storey up, her cries seen yet unheard. The distance elevates the isolation. Cold, funny and self-aware, In Order Of Disappearance works both as a procedural thriller and a darkly funny meta take on the genre.