Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Max Manus: Man of War Blu-ray Movie Review

Resistance is not futile.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 20, 2011

If you mention the Resistance with regard to World War II, chances are most people almost automatically default to thinking about the French. And yet why should that be so, especially when one considers the rather infamous collaborationist history of the Vichy government? In fact almost all of the nations swarmed over and eventually conquered by the Nazis had their own Resistance movements, and many of them achieved rather considerable success. It’s equally strange that most people tend not to think of the Scandinavian countries much, if at all, within the broader context of the War generally, but of course Hitler set his sights North relatively early in his nefarious career, and Norway and Denmark soon came under Nazi rule. Sweden managed to maintain an ostensible neutrality, though it traded freely with the Nazis and had immense deposits of precious metals which were necessary for the Nazi war machine and provided a certain kind of insurance policy for the Swedes. The Finnish situation was a bit more complex. The Finns had already been involved in a lengthy and not especially well resolved conflict with the Soviet Union, which has supposedly ended with a peace treaty which nonetheless forced the Finns to cede almost ten percent of their country’s territory. Perhaps deciding that the enemy of their enemy was their friend, when the pact between the Nazis and the Soviets was reneged upon by Hitler, the Finns jumped over into an official allied position with the Nazis, and their country was soon overrun by hordes of German soldiers. Though the bulk of Max Manus: Man of War deals with the Norwegian Resistance, the film actually starts off with a brief sequence (which recurs in a series of frightening flashbacks) of Max fighting in the Winter War between the Soviets and the Finns, where he had volunteered to lend his services. The dichotomy of seeing gorgeous snowcapped fields suddenly turn bloody with the spoils of war helps to immediately establish the ambiguity with which this film flirts rather artfully. Though Max Manus was a real-life war hero who sometimes single handedly helped forge Norwegian national unity with a series of daring raids and sabotage missions, he was also deeply, deeply scarred by the traumas he experienced, including seeing several of his closest friends ruthlessly murdered at the hands of the Nazis. It is that dialectic which provides Max Manus: Man of War with the emotional tension it forges, above and beyond its traditional wartime setting and heroics.

Max is wounded in the Winter War and finds himself back in his native Norway, then firmly under control of the Nazis. He almost immediately falls in with a naïve bunch of young men who while not perhaps completely delusional about their ability to change what’s happened, at least harbor hope that they can cause some collateral damages around the fringes, guerrilla style. They begin by publishing their own hand written paper debunking the Nazi propaganda claiming Norwegians were thrilled to have been conquered and just couldn’t wait to begin speaking German. In one of the few voiceovers in the film, Max ( Aksel Hennie) states how he, still a relatively young man, probably thought of his activities as almost a game, and he got careless. That leads to Max actually being caught by the Nazis, which in turn leads to an exciting, but ultimately boneheaded (and bone crushing) leap out of a second story window, something which promptly lands Max in a hospital surrounded by a coterie of not very friendly German armed guards.

The film is unbelievably picturesque for a traditional wartime epic, and one of those serene sylvan interludes then takes place as Max escapes from the hospital (once again through a window, though a bit more artfully this time) to Scotland, where he’s trained by United Kingdom operatives to become a saboteur. He forms a close relationship with his kinsman Gregers Gram (Nicolai Cleve Broch), and the two soon return to Norway where they become leaders of a daring attack on German supply ships in the dead of night. This is one of the most exciting sequences in the film, as Max, Gregers, and a group of not very well trained civilians quietly paddle about huge German craft with armed Nazis patrolling every inch of the docks and ships themselves. Their mission is more successful than perhaps even they had hoped, and Max especially, due partly to his quasi-insane leap from a hospital window previously, finds himself becoming something of a folk legend to everyday Norwegians.

The rest of Max Manus: Man of War plays out in a series of cat and mouse sequences as Gestapo commander Siegfried Rehmer (Ken Duken) becomes obsessed with capturing the errant Norseman and Max seems to be preternaturally well equipped to avoid capture. A bittersweet element also begins to take hold in the second half of the film, especially as Max starts to feel guilt for not only repeatedly evading capture, but for actually continuing to live when so many of his friends and comrades start dropping like flies in swarms of Nazi gunfire.

There are a couple of standout sequences in this second half of Max Manus: Man of War, including a riveting segment where Max gets into Rehmer’s apartment to destroy records of Norwegian men the Germans want to ship to the front lines to do their dirty work for them. Though they largely get the job done, they find themselves caught in a fusillade of bullets as they attempt to escape afterwards. Another incredibly well staged sequence deals with Gregers’ attempts to make contact with a German man who ostensibly wants to give the Resistance fighters inside information about the Gestapo.

I’m not sure if we’re in the early stages of seeing a Scandinavian Powell-Pressburger develop with the dual directing team of Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, though the results so far are awfully auspicious. Unlike Powell-Pressburger, they didn’t write their own screenplay with Max Manus: Man of War, but the technical craft on display throughout this film is awesome, with one impeccably well staged and photographed scene after another. Performances are also uniformly strong, including Hennie as the troubled lead character, the more glamorous and foolhardy Broch as Gregers, a lugubrious Duken as Rehmer, and a wonderfully nuanced turn by Agnes Kittelson as the brusque operative who would go on to marry Max after the war.

Too often those of us in the West tend to think of global conflicts as only involving part of the globe. Most Westerners probably won’t have heard of Max Manus, or even know very much about the Norwegian Resistance. This film is an excitingly visceral experience which not just recreates history, allowing us to learn, but manages to give us a peek into the real people whose heroic facades can’t completely mask their inner turmoil and tribulations.

Max Manus: Man of War Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Max Manus: Man of War blasts onto Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. As noted above, this is really an unsually picturesque war film, with gorgeous location footage and some artfully handled CGI and matte work that really opens the film up. Production design is exceptional as well, and the entire film looks beautifully sharp and well detailed almost all of the time. A number of the Norwegian sequences are filtered (appropriately) toward the ice cool blue end of the spectrum, and while that would normally include some contrast issues, that actually isn't the case here. A lot of this film plays outdoors, and depth of field is stunning at times. Fine detail is abundant and pleasing throughout. In fact the only niggling complaint is some transitory aliasing which crops up on some of the vintage car grilles and the like.

Max Manus: Man of War Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Max Manus: Man of War is presented with an incredibly robust lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Norwegian track (with the Scottish sequence in English). This is a beautifully rendered track chock full of immersive moments. The opening battle sequence gives the listener a bristling array of bullets whizzing through the soundfield, and then later when Max meets the guys who will become the core of the resistance movement, listen to the incredible pan of the low flying German plane overhead. The film rarely lets up in its sonic ingenuity, ably matching tenser, quieter moments with the more over the top action sequences. In fact, some of the most effective moments are those quieter moments. Beautifully placed foley effects like a paddle hitting the water in the dock sabotage scene help to create ambience almost magically. Dialogue is crisp and clear, and the penetrative use of LFE assaults the ears with some incredible low register vibrations.

Max Manus: Man of War Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Max Manus: Film and Reality (1080i; 45:55) is a really interesting documentary-featurette giving ample background on the real life Max as well as how his story was adapted and at times slightly altered for the film.
• Theatrical Trailer

Max Manus: Man of War Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Prior to having seen this film, about the only thing I could tell you about Norway and World War II was the name Quisling. Now after having watched Max Manus: Man of War I realize that there is obviously so much more to find out. This is an exciting and brilliantly produced film which captures both the crazy quilt heroics of a band of civilian guerrillas as well as the heartbreak that war often brings to its combatants. Epic in scope and yet completely intimate and personal in its actual story, Max Manus: Man of War is certainly one of the best World War II films in recent memory, and the fact that it is so while offering us a really unusual setting just makes it all the more Highly recommended.