Directed by Ole Christian Madsen
Written by Ole Christian Madsen and Lars Kristian Andersen
Starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lars Brygmann, Albert Arthur Amiryan , Adam Buschard, Jakob Oftebro,  Sonja Richter
Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes
In theaters and VOD on September 3

by Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

The terrorist attacks in Copenhagen on February 14 and 15, 2015 left Finn Nørgaard and Dan Uzan dead. Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, the perpetrator, was also killed. It was a significant act in the wake of the then-recent Charlie Hebdo killings in France. Powder Keg, directed and cowritten by Ole Christian Madsen, is a well-meaning attempt to portray this horrific event, but the film generates more tedium than tension.

Madsen’s approach is manipulative. He opens the film with a debriefing of Rico (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a SWAT team member who killed Omar (Albert Arthur Amiryan) after he committed his acts of terrorism. Flashing back in time, Omar is revealed to be fresh out of prison (again), having had numerous scrapes with the law over the years. There is a suggestion he is motivated by the political cartoons that prompted the Hebdo attack, and one of the killings is at an event for Lars Vilks, a controversial Swedish artist. But Omar is mostly shown to be an enigmatic presence, which does the film no favors. Powder Keg does not get inside his head simply by scrutinizing his face. 

Rico’s story is also problematic. He has suffered repeated bodily injury over the years and his superiors question his ability to perform his duties. He claims to be fine, however, he cannot get off the couch without pain. Moreover, he feels unfit for—and uninterested in—any other kind of work. Rico’s story also, oddly, involves him having a Tinder date and griping about how his ex-wife keeps him from their kids. These scenes are supposed to add shading to his character, but they are more like smudges. Because the film indicates early on that Rico survives (and he is played by Coster-Waldau), Madsen has to flesh out his character, but his personal life does not have any impact on his professional one—which is not the case with the two victims.

However, Powder Keg does not provide much in the way of backstory for the two men who died either. Dan Uzan (Adam Buschard) is a 37-year-old with a political science degree who is having difficulty getting work. An employment counselor suggests he change his last name, hinting at the anti-Semitic attitudes in Demark. Dan doesn’t do much in the film except get rejected by potential employers and volunteer working security at his local synagogue. But it is clear he is a mensch; he looks in on his neighbors and cares deeply. Alas, the film is especially manipulative when Dan finally secures an interview for a job starting the Monday after the attacks.  

The other victim is Finn Nørgaard (Lars Brygmann) a documentary filmmaker who is frustrated by one of his clients—especially when one of his project ideas is stolen (he justly throws a conference phone against a wall in anger). Fed up, he disrupts his patient wife Janne’s (Sonja Richter) dinner party by attacking their guests’ privilege and advocating for publications like Charlie Hebdo to satirize all that is wrong with society. His righteous anger is not misplaced, but it is shrill. Finn eventually closes his business and attends the Vilks event where Omar opens fire. His actions as the bullets start flying are both heroic and questionable. Madsen films this sequence clumsily and uses a clichéd shot of Finn going to heaven as he bleeds out.

Powder Keg never makes any of its lead characters or the action particularly compelling. The film’s first 75 minutes establish the storylines, but they feel flabby, lacking the urgency of a solid docudrama. When the film indicates “February 14,” the climax feels like the film is going through the motions to depict the inevitable. This approach begs the questions: Is there any benefit to showing the terrorist acts? Would the film have been more powerful without cudgeling viewers with heavy-handed sad irony? Perhaps, but Madsen leaves viewers with a line spoken by Rico, “We must be better than we are.” 

Powder Keg is an important story. But this film version should have been better than it is.