I find that most British and American versions of a superb movie or novel never live up to the original treatment. But here is one that is equal to the better financed American version.
First of all, both are directed by the same man, a rarity in that.
Both tell the story in a unique way, as each character interacts with the main character until literally disappears off the screen. The underlining humor of that makes both films excellent.
Why bother with the Norwegian version if you've seen the American? While the American version has the unusual premise that one of the two warring bad guys are Native Americans (a first I believe) there are just the two Norwegian bad guy groups. Otherwise the movies are pretty much the same. I five starred both movies because of the interesting scheme of the story.

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Kate

Great condition

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2024

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Arrived on time and in great condition

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Tirdad Derakhshani

Stellan Skarsgård's giant snowplow cleans up the streets -- one corpse at a time

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2016

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Swift, fleet-of-foot, and efficient, with clean lines and a sleek finish, the Norwegian black comedy In Order of Disappearance glides through the world like a perfectly engineered car or a gorgeous piece of modern furniture.

Set in the sparse, blindingly white snowfields of the Scandinavian winter, Hans Petter Moland's violent, satirical crime thriller is assembled with such formal rigor and visual poetry that it throws into high relief the messy, sweaty, almost repulsively human drama that unspools.

The film's knockout power is due in no small part to the contributions of cinematographer Philip Øgaard and leading man Stellan Skarsgård, who have worked with the writer-director on two of his best-known features, A Somewhat Gentle Man (2010) and Aberdeen (2000).

Though he's backed by a strong ensemble cast that includes Peter Andersson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Danish star Birgitte Hjort Sørensen (Borgen), and German-film star Bruno Ganz (The American Friend), Skarsgård dominates the screen with his 6-foot, 4-inch frame, his outsize rage and grief, and the gigantic snowplow truck he drives.

Skarsgård plays Nils, a successful small-town businessman. His world comes crashing down when his twentysomething son turns up dead in Oslo of a drug overdose. Convinced the boy wasn't a drug user, Nils digs deeper, only to find that the young man was murdered on orders from a local thug acting on behalf of Oslo's new drug kingpin, the Count (Pål Sverre Hagen), a spoiled rich kid who is heir to a chain of bakeries.

Uncovering this bit of information involves capturing, torturing, and killing a chain of bad guys, each higher up on the mobster totem pole than the last.

The killings are gruesome, often absurd events, but Moland's camera doesn't fetishize violence by lingering on the gore and the blood. Nils carefully rolls up each body in chicken wire and throws it off a cliff into a massive waterfall.

(Chicken wire? Nils is really proud of the idea: Unlike plastic or tarp, chicken wire lets fishes through from day one so they can eat up the body before it gets all bloated up and floats to the surface. What's more, he explains, chicken wire is heavier than plastic and won't decompose for years, so it'll keep the body in place.)

Like the Coen brothers' best flicks, In Order of Disappearance gets its gruesomely comic momentum from a domino effect of unintended consequences put into motion by the hero's actions.

The violent whirlwind Nils unleashes sucks in a colorful cast of characters, including a retired mobster known as Wingman (Andersson), a Japanese Danish hit man familiar to clients as the Chinaman (David Sakurai), and, eventually, Scandinavia's top Serbian drug lord, known to all as Papa (Ganz).

Operatic, absurdist, and scathing, Moland's story rages on with tremendous force and speed, never slowing down for extraneous junk like backstories, explanations, or tiresome exposition.

In Order of Disappearance will no doubt invite comparisons to similarly stylized, violent black comedies by Quentin Tarantino and the Coens.

Yet, like 2011's murder farce Headhunters by Moland's Norwegian compatriot Morten Tyldum, In Order of Disappearance has an utterly unique feel, a certain Scandinavian crispness that's impossible to duplicate.

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Peter R. Talbot

Surreal, often funny and touching revenge movie:

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2023

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If you enjoyed No Country For Old Men, this film will appeal to you. The original title is far better: Kraftidioten (literally: purposeful or powerful idiocy. It can mean something like the Business of Idiocy.
The plot is almost an excuse for showing multiple levels of psychological and ethical dysfunction. Everything is covered in snow, and yes, cocaine is involved in the plot. I won't try to summarize it here: it unfolds as almost random events, and all are misinterpreted by at least some of the characters. This film actually becomes more coherent with a second viewing since so many events unfold without explanation.

Far more sophisticated, and much more interesting than it's USA remake (Cold Pursuit). Recommend highly, but be advised that the use of blood-bags and gratuitous violence is near to the point of the film.

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chesbayj

better than US version

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2024

well worth a watch

Don't Bother With Cold Pursuit. Watch In Order Of Disappearance!

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2019

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It's always interesting to watch films from different countries and their take on it.

In a small town in Norway, Nils Dickman works as a snowplow driver keeping the roads open for the public and is given an award for being an law abiding citizen. However his world comes crashing down when his son Ingvar is found dead in the streets from a drug overdose. Nils wife heart broken and unable to come with terms of her son's death leaves Nils which he plans to commit suicide when Ingvar's friend Flnn stumbles into his house and tells Nils that Ingvar was killed by a drug kingpin.

Nils takes his hunting rifle cutting down the barrel and stock allowing him to hide it under his winter jacket and begins going after the men responsible for Ingvar's death. Mean while the drug kingpin Greven or known in the underworld as "The Count" believes his rival a Serbian gang are attacking him and his men go after the Serbian gang which causes a gang war to happen. And things really heat up when Nils kidnaps Greven son who uses him to draw out Greven with the Serbian gang after them.

I really enjoyed this movie it reminded me of 96 crime, dark comedy film Fargo. It has it's serious and violent moments and than it has it's funny moments as well. I found about this film after seeing trailers for the American remake Cold Pursuit but I like seeing the original first before checking out the remake. And after reading some reviews of it I say you skip Cold Pursuit and check out In Order Of Disappearance a lot darker and better written then Cold Pursuit.

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Top reviews from other countries

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Movie dubbed in English.

Reviewed in Canada on February 3, 2022

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Somewhat ? The dubbed version (english) wasn't very good. It was hard to take the movie seriously. The story was there but, the writing / translation was awful.

Orwell

Ojo por ojo, sin dejar rastro.

Reviewed in Mexico on October 13, 2019

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Un padre cobra venganza contra un grupo de mafiosos que asesinaron a su hijo; me gustó este filme.

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Norwegian Film:: "In Order Of Disappearance".

Reviewed in Germany on December 2, 2016

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Recommend this movie to anyone who likes a thriller that is quite "different". Theme original, and is a fast-action, no nonsense film. Some first-class performances by the actors, and background music excellent too. Sub-titles did not bother me at all.