This bizarre period piece is based on Daniel Lang’s 1974 New Yorker article The Bank Drama, about an armed robbery in Stockholm. A hyperactive Ethan Hawke plays Lars Nystrom, a mustachioed, bewigged, leather-jacketed ex-convict who bustles into the Kreditbanken with a machine gun, demanding one million US dollars and “a Mustang like Steve McQueen had in Bullitt” in exchange for his hostage, bank teller Bianca Lind (Noomi Rapace). She falls for her daffy, inept captor; the term “Stockholm syndrome” is invented.
There’s comedy in its depiction of the Swedish prime minister as a caricature of even-temperedness, but from its gaudy 70s costuming to its goofy, wobbling tone, everything about this film feels uncomfortably broad.
