Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

l_rawjalaurence With a big budget and two star actors including Mikael Persbrandt (from BECK fame), THE HYPNOTIST has everything going for it.Set in Stockholm around Christmas, it concerns the mass slaughter of a family, a traumatized boy (Jonatan Bokman), and a hypnotist (Persbrandt) who uses his powers to try and coax information out of the boy. Brought in by the local CID inspector (Tobias Zilliacus), the hypnotist thinks he is doing a good job, but matters take an unexpected turn when his son Benjamin (Oscar Pettersson) is unexpectedly abducted. The plot becomes a race against time to rescue Benjamin, a hemophiliac, before he hemorrhages.Lasse Hallström's production is highly atmospheric, using the snow- covered streets and gray lights of a Swedish winter to create a sense of foreboding in a story that proves more complicated than initially suggested. The film brings out the hypnotist's complicated past - he was struck off for having been involved in a child abuse scandal a few years previously. Persbrandt conveys an air of injured pride, as someone trying to do his job but victimized by circumstances beyond his control.As the action unfolds, however, so the plot begins to fall apart, leaving plenty of unexplained holes: how does an apparently catatonic patient manage to escape from the hospital and try to stab the hypnotist? Why should the mother of one boy want to kidnap another family's child? And how did she find out about the other family anyway? The film comes to a highly melodramatic conclusion in the frozen wastes of rural Sweden, involving a minivan gradually sinking under the ice and at least one unwanted death.The film invites us to speculate on the morality of hypnotizing someone so as to obtain information, but loses the courage of its convictions by the end.

jake_mcaga Where to begin? Well, they got it right the first half of the movie. Sort of. After that everything got down hill. I blame in part the director, but mostly the screenwriter has to get the full blow. :-( Paolo messed it up big time. Large and essential parts of the book aren't included in the movie. Which is why the viewer get's the feeling the characters and the story line seems cluttered, kinda superficial and too streamlined. I know it's not easy to trim a book like this into a movie, but this time the screenwriter ruined a potential really good movie.I'd like to point out that (and here come the spoilers:) the main and essential part of the book is the group hypnotherapy led by Erik, the main character. I'm so tempted to say what happens there but I won't. The second major flaw is everything that led up to the start of the ending. You don't get to see or know why and how they ended up on a desolate farm in the countryside. In the book there are several events leading the story up to this place. What bugs me the most are two simple scenes which they stripped and changed completely. They didn't have to. In the movie, the first crime scene is in a gymnasium. In the book however it's in the adjacent wardrobe. The ending scenes...Good grief. They even managed to change McDonalds to a Thai takeaway. Let alone the final scene which is completely different to the book. So - unless you're dyslectic...Just the read book instead!!! Ending this comment, by changing my vote from 3 to 2. But the book gets a 10 from me.

Raymond I'm a big fan of both Lasse Hallström and Swedish crime drama (Beck, Wallander etc), so needless to say I was expecting a lot from this. I didn't come here before watching, so I had no idea of the low score and I can tell you it's totally justified, maybe even too high.Crime drama clearly is not Lasse Hallströms forte. He's done some remarkable films and often creates very likable, believable and true to life characters. While Persbrandt and Olin create somewhat solid characters, they are still miles away from characters Hallström has previously put on screen. The rest of the cast on the other hand is just amazingly dull and underdeveloped.I haven't read any detective Joona Linna books, so I have no knowledge of him as a character. And after watching this movie I still know absolutely nothing about him. I don't know if he is also downplayed in the books, but in this movie he's just plain uninteresting. There is no background info at all. The detective characters are the driving force behind all crime series. Wallander and Beck are both very solid and interesting characters as is the Norwegian Varg Veum. Germans have crafted the art of "krimi" for years and are masters in that genre. Hallström clearly hasn't watched any of those. Altho I was wondering at times if they had just made a bad casting choice with Tobias Zilliacus and wanted to minimize his screen time in editing and instead focus on Persbrandt and Olin, who steal the show. Zilliacus - at least with his screen time - is incredibly boring and lacks charisma.Then the story. While initially interesting, the script is just horrible. I will probably have to read the book just to see how they filled in the plot holes that ended up in the movie. Absolutely nothing is logical here. Why did the crime happen? The relationship between the boy and his mother is a complete mystery. A lot of loose ends like her sister. It's a complete mess and the pacing is horrible. The finale is rushed after spending way too much time on everything else.The only positive things in this movie is the relatively atmospheric cinematography and the acting by Mikaeal Persbrandt. Since this was the first of the Linna series, there will probably be more. They probably wanted a big name to direct the first and then make the rest with a different crew and an established crime series director like Kjell Sundvall or Anders Engström (atleast I hope so).Not for fans of the genre.

Laakbaar The current rating on IMDb is too low. This is an enjoyable enough film. It's certainly worth taking in, especially if you're into crime dramas.The plot is fairly straightforward. Three members of a family are brutally killed, only the oldest boy surviving. He's in a coma though. Police investigator Joona Linna (played by Tobias Zilliacus) ends up investigating the crime. He gets a doctor to come in to hypnotise the boy to identify his assailant, and the doctor succeeds in doing so. (It is apparently possible for comatose patients to talk under hypnosis.) But then the doctor and his family become caught up in the drama. Will the killer be stopped? It's a good, simple story. The start and end of the movie in particular are quite strong. The climactic scene at the isolated farm was unexpected and the best part of the movie. Spectacular filmmaking really. It had me on the edge of my seat.The acting was fine. There's a lot of character development involving Joona Linna, Erik Maria Bark (played by Mikael Persbrandt) and his wife Simone (played by Lena Olin). The movie is called "The Hypnotist" but I didn't really see the doctor as being at the centre of the movie.This is a slow paced movie, a little too slow for me at times. That might be why people have not rated it higher.Most of the events take place in a hospital and three homes. There are a lot of shots of wintry Stockholm, a suitable backdrop I suppose for a dark Scandinavian crime drama. I enjoyed what I assume is a realistic portrayal of Swedish life. The dialogue was in Swedish, with subtitles. Everything in the movie seemed rather understated and starkly realistic. This is not a grand Sweden of magic and beauty. As you might expect in a thoroughly Swedish movie, mental illness and human foibles are the major crime themes. No Hollywood moralising here about good and evil, right and wrong. Bias disclosure: This is not my favourite genre. I know next to nothing about Scandinavian crime novels, television shows and movies. I haven't even yet read the Larsson "Girl" trilogy, although my sister gave it to me two years ago. Even most American or British crime shows don't interest me, although I am an avid fan of Law & Order.Also, I went to see this movie without knowing anything about it. Haven't read the book. I didn't even know it was a Swedish movie. Even so, I thought it was OK. You might too.