Men and Chicken

Anders Tomas Jensen could be the most prolific writer working in cinema today but a quick glance through his filmography doesn't hint at the oddball nature of his latest, Men & Chicken - the writer's first directorial outing in ten years.

With dour affairs like After The Wedding, A Second Chance, The Salvation, and In A Better World on his CV, the darkly comic Men & Chicken is an unexpected delight.

When smart Gabriel (Dencik) and kooky Elias (Mikkelsen) discover that they are not in fact brothers and are indeed adopted, the two set out on a quest to find their biological father – a disgraced scientist squirreled away in a rundown sanatorium on a sparsely populated island off the coast of Denmark. He lives there with his three redneck sons – horny Gregor (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), violent Franz (Malling) and bookish Josef (Bro) - whose mental instability, and penchant to seek the 'comfort' their in-house pets during lonely nights, is cause for concern on the island. Gabriel and Elias are invited to stay but the three half-mad siblings are reluctant to introduce the new arrivals to their mutual father, hidden away in some upstairs room, and won’t divulge the secret of their father’s experiments in the basement…

Known for playing more serious roles – Le Chiffre's Bond villain, Stravinsky's moody composer, A Royal Affair's world-weary physician, a teacher accused of paedophilia in Vinterberg’s stirring The Hunt and, of course, TV’s Hannibal Lecter - Mikkelsen is a revelation here with the actor finding hitherto untapped comic skill. His Elias is a twitchy, chronic masturbator, rushing to the toilet to relieve himself if he even talks to a woman. But Mikkelsen plays him for more than just laughs – there's a thought process going on behind his wild eyes, however eccentric those thoughts are, and there's a sadness and loneliness driving him.

While Anders Tomas Jensen can lose sight at times of the narrative's beating heart – the love the somewhat estranged brothers discover for each other – the knockabout, wacky sense of humour keeps things ticking over. Elias dismisses all scientists, calling Darwin a fluke and remarking that Einstein only received the Nobel Prize because "1921 was the lamest year in physics." Josef's deconstruction of Abraham & Isaac is a hoot and the chaotic dinner scenes have an edgy fun vibe.

It’s wholly unpredictable too with sudden outbursts of violence. The funny bits are hilarious and the dark bits – what the experiments in that locked basement entailed – are vantablack; Jensen though doesn't lurch from one tone to the next, ensuring it all knits together nicely.

Quite unlike anything you'll see this year.