What if life got so bad that prison seems like paradise? That’s the solid premise at the heart of One Way to Denmark, a bittersweet heist comedy of sorts from BBC Films. Director Adrian Shergold doesn’t go in all guns blazing, but this low key effort does just about enough to hold your attention for ninety minutes.
Herb (Rafe Spall) is unemployed and at the end of his tether living in a miserable-looking Welsh town. Austerity has turned him into a shell of a man, only good for fixing other people’s toasters free of charge. When he watches a TV show about how luxurious (relatively!) Dutch incarceration can be, Herb resolves to smuggle himself into the country and get banged up. Cue a series of hilarious pratfalls where he tries… and fails!… to attract the long arm of the law.
Writer Jeff Murphy sets the attention-grabbing antics aside once he reaches the title country, with a focus on Herb’s personal journey instead. He quickly falls in with bar worker Mathilda (Simone Lykke) and it seems romance is on the cards. But Herb is a troubled soul, and it’s only a matter of time before the things that haunt him bubble to the surface.
Personally I wasn’t convinced by how the movie develops once Herb reaches Denmark… the aspiring public enemy gets his wish, just not in the way he expects. Even so, Spall’s moving performance has you feeling for the character.
The main strength of One Way in Denmark is its cast. The always watchable Joel Fry pops up as Herb’s pal “The Captain”, someone who’s given an elaborate backstory then for some reason disappears. The Full Monty’s Paul Barber appears in an amusing but very brief role.
Unfortunately you never really find out what makes central character Herb tick. Shergold and co rely on Spall’s world weary and winning exterior to put things across. His depression is mentioned at the start of the story – Murphy lets the audience fill in the blanks from there. Herb has too easy a time of it once he lands on foreign soil and I could have done with more tension. He also has a weird habit of looking to camera as if bringing us with him on the ride, a device which looked rather tacked on to me.
Ultimately this is a comedy and deep exploration probably wasn’t on the cards. Shame, as the film appeared to have some interesting things to say. Despite the downbeat approach, Murphy isn’t above packing the script with expletives and an over-reliance on literal toilet humour.
Giving the movie its royal flush is Richard Hawley on soundtrack duties. The music is one of the memorable things about this well-made and performed effort.
Neither meaty and thought-provoking enough to be a satisfying drama, or light and sharp enough to be a great comedy, One Way in Denmark falls between two stools. Ultimately it’s about someone having a really terrible time who’s finally cut a bit of slack. That in itself is no bad thing.
One Way in Denmark is available on Digital HD in the UK and Ireland from 20th July 2020.
One Way in Denmark
Summary
Rafe Spall tries to get banged up across the Channel in this intriguing but vague comic journey to self discovery.
