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Some things I didn't like about this movie


1. It rather unabashedly shoves theism down your throat. Instead of a balanced and thought-provoking discussion of theism and atheism, we get a theist making (poor) arguments for believing in a god (e.g. 'I want to believe it because that makes me happy', 'most people believe in a god', etc.) and the atheist retorting with "theism is silly" instead of critiquing his theist partner's arguments. As with other films, this one too portrays the theist as a poor victim being condescended to by a stereotypically smug atheist even though Carl simply wanted Assad to be rational and apply the same standard by which he found the Christian sect's beliefs absurd to his own faith. The film, instead of staying neutral, quite clearly implies that the theistic POV is more preferable than the atheistic one and stereotypes the atheistic worldview as too gloomy.

[Though I admit, the movie also portrays having faith solely in God as a bad thing when it shows how parents relying solely on God for help instead of going to the police when their kids get kidnapped are making a bad choice. Still, I felt that the film advocated being a theist (who doesn't totally rely on God and prayer) instead of not advocating any particular position and letting people come to their own conclusions].

2. Why did they make Carl homophobic? In the first film of the trilogy, The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013), Carl talks about the orphaned guy being homosexual and there is no hint that he has homophobic views. Yet in this film, we have him listing homosexuality as one of the "bad habits" he hopes people get over (implying that he thinks homosexuality is a choice and somehow bad). You'd think a film trilogy that tries to promote (by Western standards) a 'leftist' agenda (e.g. by trying to convince people to be tolerant of Muslims) would be responsible enough to not make homophobic 'jokes.' It soured the rest of the movie-watching experience for me when the protagonist I sympathise with turned out to be homophobic.

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I haven't see the previous film and I also wondered about that line - was he being homophobic or just trying to get a reaction out of Assad? I hope it's the latter rather than the former. Maybe Danish natives could enlighten us.
My problem concerned the admittedly well-executed train sequence. I mean they get the helicopter but then it conveniently disappeared when they needed it.... That was scrappy writing in an otherwise very entertaining little flick

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Yes, I also thought: what happened to the helicopter? That made no sense.

I was surprised too by the homophobic line. I think he was teasing Assad.

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It is clearly explained in the dialog from the Helicopter pilot..

"The train is heading for the forest where our view will be restricted."
"A man jumped from the train. We have no visual contact."

Then Assad says to Carl to get the helicopter when he was tending to Elias.

Then Carl gets on the phone and says "Send the helicopter back", "Elias must go to the hospital asap!"

Clearly the Helicopter went ahead of the forested area as it was unable to maintain any visual contact in that area.

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If you're a native Danish speaker, it was very clear that it was meant as sarcasm.

I think he was hinting at Assad (who is most likely a Muslim) and the "homosexuality is a choice" approach that many religions promote.

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SPOILERS!
There are several things that make this film disjointed and unbelievable.

As you point out, the atheistic POV is represented extremely simplistically.

But so are several of the ways the police seem to (not) do their work well.

Police are supposedly highly trained to SEE and remember details.

When the cop shoots at the car in the forest, he shoots out the back window and he manages to wound the driver before falling back outhet while the driver escapes.
First problem: a cop would have noticed teh make of car, would have perhaps even memorized the license plate. Nobody seems to have tried to find the killer by tracing the car!

Second bizarre moment. In the hospital, the cop realizes the killer is in the hospital too, and suddenmly he sees him through the glass, standing in another room behind the second cop.
He says "He's behind you"... but the second cop doesn't even turn around... huh?

The third cop who is stabbed in teh parking lot... we don't even see how the killer got the best of him. How does he get a car, and nhow does he drive it with blood spurting out of his neck? For that matter, how does teh killer manage to get the other cop to take to his hideaway.
That makes two cops in an undergrond parking lot that both somehow get bested by a guy with scissors while tehy have guns. But the film doesn't bother to show us how he does it. This is simple laziness on the part of the writers.

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[deleted]

I took that as a (dark) joke on his part.

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