This marriage of unpredictable Jo Nesbo violence and Forrest Gump is overlong and too quirky for its own good but the silliness manages to keep things ticking over. Best advice one can give is to just go with it.
Allan (Gustafsson) is the titular centenarian who is committed to an old folks' home after blowing up the fox that killed his beloved cat. Bored, he sneaks out the back window and while waiting for his train inadvertently relieves a neo Nazi of his suitcase and the fifty million in cash that's inside. Roping in the kind Julius (Wiklander), the two elderly gentlemen hit the road, disposing of any gangster the house-bound Gaddan (Hulten), under pressure from his Bali-based boss Pim (Alan Ford), who owns the cash in question, sends their way. 'Kidnapping' a perpetual student who can't make up his mind re a career, the trio hold up on a farm that doubles as an elephant sanctuary where they decide their next move. Meanwhile, a frustrated cop investigates the numbers of bodies that keep showing up...
Busy, yes? Just wait. As all this unfolds we also have Forrest Gump/Ben Button flashbacks to big moments of the 20th century with Allan finding himself an unlikely key player in the likes of the Spanish Civil War and The Manhattan Project. Like Gump was inadvertently responsible for Nixon's downfall at Watergate, Allan unwittingly plays a part in persuading Truman to drop the bomb. He also gets to meet some iconic figures, like Franco and Stalin. And Albert Einstein's less gifted brother. He's then recruited by both sides during the Cold War, the clueless oaf somehow passing as a double agent until his retirement.
It's myriad of different styles. Joining the Forrest Gump/Benjamin Button storyline, the Guy Richie approach to bumbling gangsters, and the unexpected outbursts of Jo Nesbo violence, there's a touch of a Wes Anderson episodic narrative where convenient coincidence plays a major role. It's a film in Swedish but it has an English narration. There is nothing – nothing! -about this that should work but somehow, despite everything, it's entertaining.
Perhaps if it had settled on one storyline – either the Forrest Gump or the Old Coot/Nesbo plots – director Felix Herngren, adapting Jonas Jonasson's novel, might have had a more coherent film. But then it wouldn't be half as fun.
