BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

stormkorp It seems like the story writers sat down and said: Let's make a film about the country side dystopia of Sweden. Well, they did. They filled it with all the most obvious clichés.The daughter of a religious family. The violent son of a violent man with a bad reputation. Racism, poverty, alcoholism and all the normal stuff.Fine, that can make a good story IF it's directed in a good way and if the actors are least some steps out of class 1 for actors. The acting is absolutely awful and that becomes very obvious when you have Swedish as your mother language. The directing is as blunt and bleak as directing can ever be and basically anyone with a tiny little bit of skill could've made miracles compared to the result Dansk Skalle brought forward.If a little bit of time and imagination had been used to give the characters some depth the story had been given another dimension, but it's a total void in that sector. What you is what you get and it's all extremely shallow. In a movie of this length there's plenty of time for giving the characters some sort of an identity and profile, but I can't see any serious attempts for doing so.The story itself is badly structured and the end totally illogical and pointless. Frustration of being a looser without a future, sure, but killing your friends without reason is a completely different thing.I was completely flabbergasted when I saw this film was nominated for an award, and almost equally so when I found out the movie almost got a 5 star rating here on IMDb. 5 is way too high as there's absolutely no quality in this movie. In any way.

cheattila If you are patient, this movie will knock you out. It is like a good brandy or a glass of wine: it will affect you slowly. This film will possess you with its atmosphere and mood. If you let it.I think Odjuret catches the problem of our time and of the late 20th / early 21st century. The chaotic world which you cannot control. The country which is beautiful on the one hand, but consumes you and keep you from human relationships and possibilities on the other hand. These youths are without goals or imaginations about the future. For them there is no future, it is certain from the beginning to the very end.And this movies is great because it catches not a particular problem of a country (by the way: who would think that Sweden is so unbearable?), but a universal one which concerns every young people nowadays from Sweden through my homeland to Japan.

winbob-2 I'll grant you that I am not a Foreign Film Critic, but I do watch a lot of Foreign made films, subbed, dubbed, and English. This was not a very good film in my opinion. Swedish films are typically the most difficult to digest, but this one was beyond my enjoyment.I found it interesting that the opening scene and the final scene are the same, because I felt that it acknowledged that the film went nowhere. Sadly for as much screen time as the main characters had, there was little or no development. Within the first few moments of each characters screen appearance you will know as much about them as you will by the end of the film. There is some change in the intensity of the main character, but the whole of his personality is laid out before you in those first few minutes.As for "resolution". Forget about it. It IS possible to have closure in a film without it being formulaic. In fact that takes a more thoughtful script writing than just leaving the audience hanging at the end.I can not recommend this film.

gwenmaddy Some friends and I saw Odjuret (English title: Savage) at the 2011 Gothenburg International Film Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. We're not really the "art film" kind of people but we went to see it mainly because a mutual friend of ours is in it. Also, it has been nominated for the Best Nordic Film of the Year award. The atmosphere of the film is one of a stifling, nearly suffocating frustration caused by the suppression of the dreams and desires of the characters, all of whom have various needs that are not being fulfilled. This is something to which everyone can relate. There are the things we want and need in life, and then there are the countless circumstances beyond our control that prevent us from acquiring those wants and needs. The film takes the audience down this path of frustrated dreams and suppressed desires. Along the way we find out what happens when one's dreams are denied until one reaches a breaking point. I give the film a 10 out of 10 and hope it wins the award.