Directed by Pål Øie
Written by Kjersti Helen Rasmussen
Starring Thorbjørn Harr, Ylva Fuglerud, Lisa Carlehed
Runtime 1 hour 45 minutes
In theaters and on demand April 9

by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

A little sincerity goes a long way. 

If The Tunnel were an American film, I feel like the specific plot points, the little bullet-points that add up to the film as a whole, would be remarkably similar, but it would feel so very perfunctory. It just sounds like a movie aching to be remade with Dwayne Johnson in the starring role held by Thorbjørn Harr here as Stein, a firefighter, a widower, coping with loss in his own way, whilst butting heads with his daughter, who is coping with loss in her own way. It sounds very by-the-numbers, but the thing is, The Tunnel isn’t hitting these beats just to add meat to the skeleton of a formulaic picture--these plot elements actually mean something. In a film like this, it’s actually about these things, rather than cynically using them as window dressing or devices to move the story forward. 

Set at Christmastime, there’s bound to be a lot of comparison to Die Hard–localized to more or less in a single location, a “regular Joe” action hero fights for his family–but it’s also got hints of disaster pictures thrown in, like The Poseidon Adventure, and maybe a little bit of Jaws thrown in for good measure, in that it’s a man fighting against something without a motive, it’s a force of nature they’re reckoning with. 

However you want to split up the math with the comparisons, The Tunnel is 100% badass. It’s an action/disaster flick with a surprising amount of genuine emotional depth and genuine affection for its characters. It’s taught, it’s tense, and when bad things happen, we genuinely don’t want to see it happen. It does what a movie is supposed to do, in that it introduces us to a situation, one by one, putting the pieces together, and we dread what we know must come next, because we don’t want to see anything happen to these complex, sometimes broken people we’ve gotten to know. 

In the film’s prologue, setting the stage, we get to know our players. Stein, as I’ve mentioned before, is the film’s closest thing we have to a hero, although he’s not very heroic. He’s brave, but he’s selfishly motivated. He follows orders to a T, until it affects him personally. So, in other words, he’s human. His daughter, Elise, ran off after a fight and jumped on a bus to Oslo. We meet other travelers, truckers and families--we even meet the plastic bag that will obscure the vision of the tanker truck driver, causing an accident that will endanger everyone we’ve gotten to know. 

The titular tunnel becomes a death trap after the tanker truck explodes and the burning fumes fill the miles-long enclosure with poisonous gas. There’s no way out, it seems, and everyone is fighting for their lives. Panicked people attempt to drive out in limited visibility and make the situation worse. People are hit, families are fractured, and all the while, the fire burns, the smoke gets thicker, and the poison begins to kill. 

The Tunnel is directed by Pål Øie from a script by Kjersti Helen Rasmussen. What makes the film work as well as it does is that it never seems to take a ghoulish delight in the horrible things we’re witnessing. When we see a car, covered in flames, and its driver soon after exit the vehicle on fire and die shortly thereafter, there’s never a moment where it’s like, “Pretty cool, huh?” The film very clearly understands this is an awful thing to happen and to witness. The movie isn’t about these horrible things. It doesn’t linger on or relish these details. Like any piece of writing worth its weight in salt, it’s about how our characters will react to these situations. Who will remain cool under pressure? Who will snap? And the moments that follow feel real because they’re flowing from the characters. There are smart decisions made from a control room and dumb decisions made in a moment of panic, and they both feel as genuine as the other. 

Is a movie like The Tunnel “fun”? Sure. I guess. Don’t get confused by what type of movie this is. It’s not a rollicking adventure with fire and explosions. It’s a drama about life and death, set into motion through an action-packed sequence. There is action that follows, but not for the purpose of enticement, but to illicit horror. The Tunnel is a well-made, thrilling movie, sincere in its emotional impact. It’s not for everyone, but for those who a movie like this is made for, they’ll find a lot to admire and will think about its themes long after it has ended.