Sometimes even the most foolproof plans — like committing a robbery knowing you’re going to be caught and imprisoned for 15 years, but asking your odd duck of a brother to hide half the loot under a tree at the childhood home you no longer own — can go awry.
But to be fair to Anker (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), many of the key components of his plan actually work. He does get out of prison in 15 years with good behavior, and the money is more or less where he expected it to be. But a lot can change in a decade and a half, and even the most brilliant criminals could hardly be expected to predict developments like a younger brother (Mads Mikkelsen) processing his trauma over losing you by becoming so convinced he’s John Lennon that he compulsively attempts suicide whenever his legal name is mentioned. Or the emergence of a booming vacation rental industry that turned your childhood home into a popular weekend getaway with frustratingly extroverted hosts.
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So begins “The Last Viking,” another beautifully dark comedy about adult siblings from “Men & Chicken” director Anders Thomas Jensen. The director’s frequent collaborators Kass and Mikkelsen have spent enough time onscreen together to be utterly believable in a sibling relationship that’s shaped by 30 years of bad vibes. Mikkelsen’s Manfred (but don’t you dare call him anything but John) has been socially challenged for as long as anyone can remember, and his insistence on wearing Viking regalia to school as a child made him an easy target for bullies. The burden of defending him (from both cruel classmates and an angry father who couldn’t understand why his son couldn’t be normal) always fell on Anker, which had the inverse effect of hardening him while softening his brother into a man who doesn’t know how to exist without the protection of others.
Fifteen years of separation led them to grow even further apart, though, and a once-symbiotic relationship has evolved into something considerably more prickly. When Anker emerges from prison, he expects the hard part of his life to be over. But just when he wants to kick back and enjoying his hard-stolen wealth, he walks into a minefield. Manfred greets him with about 100 dinner rolls (his favorite, when served in moderation) and a declaration that he will only be addressed as John Lennon. Prison doesn’t exactly prepare a middle-aged man for such social nuances, but rising pressure to pay one of his old associates forces Anker to navigate the choppy waters in order to secure the money that Manfred buried for him.
The two men head to their childhood home, now an Airbnb run by a couple whose marriage is hanging by the thinnest of threads. Margrethe (Sofie Gråbøl) always thought she was too hot to marry Werner (Søren Malling), and watching him waste decades of his life procrastinating his dream of starting a clothing line followed by another seven years of trying to think of a topic for a children’s book hasn’t exactly provided the spark of attraction she needed. An awkward dinner makes it clear that both duos feel like they’re getting the short end of the stick, with Margrethe put off by Manfred’s abrasive behavior and Anker resenting the marital awkwardness he’s forced to witness.
What could have simply been an unpleasant weekend turns considerably more memorable with the arrival of Lothar (Lars Brygmann), a psychiatrist who previously treated Manfred. He believes he has a solution that will turn the troubled would-be-Beatle back into his normal self: form a band comprised of every other mental patient who thinks he’s a Beatle and allow them to rehearse and put on a show. There are only two other such men in Europe, but fortunately one believes that he’s both Paul and George, so there’s enough to field a band as long as he has ample time to switch between instruments.
“The Last Viking” elegantly juxtaposes the ludicrousness of the situation (one of the funniest side plots is Werner’s avid Beatle fandom and his apparently sincere belief that this makeshift band is going to deliver high quality covers) with the trauma that underscores the ridiculousness events. Manfred’s insistence on forgetting his own identity becomes a way into exploring our remarkable collective ability to forget things we’d rather not remember. And after co-starring in six of Jensen’s films together, Kaas and Mikkelsen rely on their hard-earned chemistry to explore all of the small cracks in the relationship without ever devolving into gimmickry.
The film takes its name from a story that Manfred relied on as a means of coping with childhood bullies, about a tribe of vikings who each cut off one of their arms in order to make one brother who lost his arm in battle feel less alone. Like just about everything that anyone in “The Last Viking” attempts, the plot is well-intentioned but ill-advised. That tension is what bridges the gap between the pro-Beatles sentimentality of “Yesterday” and the bloody heist aftermath of “Reservoir Dogs” to provide the emotional core of a winning film: being yourself might subject everyone around you to unnecessary hardships and occasional violence, but that’s no reason not to do it anyway.
Grade: B+
“The Last Viking” premiered at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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