"The Breakthrough": Swedish murder mystery with Peter's prick, some Stockholm hunks, and a lot of sobbing.


 In keeping with my new policy of just clicking on whatever a streaming service thinks "I'll LOVE!",  without doing any research, I clicked on The Breakthrough, on Netflix: a detective tracks down a killer, with the help of "an eccentric genealogist."  So they'll fall in love, or on the off-chance that they are both men, there will be some buddy-bonding.  

At least it's in Swedish, so I can use some of the photos from my trips to Stockholm -- one of my favorite cities in Europe (In case you're wondering, it goes: Paris, Prague, Barcelona, Tallinn, Stockholm)

The language is cool, too.  Remember in fairy tales, the monster threatens to "eat you up."  In Swedish, that's how you say "eat":

Eat my sausage.

Ät min korv opp



Episode 1: "The Unthinkable."  

Scene 1: "On October 19, 2004, a murder investigation begins: the second largest criminal investigation in Swedish history." Cut to a bedroom, with an Arab or North African Dad showing his son Adnan how to use a watch: "When the hands reach 12:00, a new day begins, and then another, forever and ever.  Time always moves forward."  Then why are we so obsessed with the past? 

Someone types on a computer "Must kill."







Scene 2
: Linkoping, in southern Sweden about 2 hours from Stockhom by train.  This all happens in montage, splitting back and forth.

1. The Detective (Peter Eggers) jogs past a soccer game, says hello to a guy he knows, pets a dog.  

2. Mom wakes up Adnan and his sister, who now have bunk beds, for breakfast with their Dad.  They all cuddle and smooch and discuss how much they love each other.  Not once, as I was eating my cereal, did my mother ever smooch the top of my head and say "I love you so, so, so much."  Thankfully.

 Adnan sets off for school.

3. An old guy and his wife hold hands in bed. She has nail polish of a very strange color, like an orange push-up (remember those?).  They get up and discuss ringing Samuel about Christmas. Maybe there will be a cute son droppiong by? Wife leaves and heads through the park.

4. A man with a hidden face rides on the subway.  He gets off and head down the street, fingering a knife.

You know where this is headed, right?  The Man stabs Adnan; the wife sees him, so he stabs her, too.  Why is the park so empty in the morning, if everybody walks  through it on their way to school or work?

Scene 3: Another montage.

1. The Detective brings food home to his pregnant wife (established as heterosexual at Minute 4.5). Close up of his hand with a wedding ring on her stomach.  Ok, the heteronormativity is getting a little loud in here. He gets a call about the murders.

2. Adnan's sister walks past the cordoned-off area and sees his toy tyrannasaurus.  She runs to his school to check -- nope, not there. 


Scene 4
:  You heard me.

Left:Peter's prick

1. The Detective listening to his car radio, reports about how we're all doomed.  Is this a post-Apocalyptic series, or is it just supposed to set a dark/depressing mood.  At the crime scene: the woman is still alive, at the hospital.  Adnan is dead.  A witness, a woman who was cycling past.  They start canvassing house to house.  Uh-oh, a man is watching from afar.  Must be the murderer.

2. The Husband of the Injured Woman calls Samuel to see about Christmas.  Samuel does not appear in the credits, so why is he being emphasized so much?  A cop knocks on the door: "A woman was assaulted in the park across the street at 8:00 am.  Did you see anything?" 

"No, but my wife, who I love more than anything else in the world, was walking through that park at 8:00 am.  Maybe she saw something...oh."

3. Adnan's parents arrive at his school to see his sister wrapped in a blanket, crying.  

Scene 5:  Maybe we're done with the montages.  The Detective in a parking garage, calling his wife.  She doesn't think he should lead the investigation, with the baby due any minute.  Wait -- is this all going to take place in 2004?  I thought we would jump ahead, with the main story in 2024.  Otherwise what's the point?  It's just a murder story.

Next the Detective addresses plain-clothes cops or community members.  The Wife has died, so it's a double murder.  He sends them out to check if anyone in the neighborhood knows anything

He interviews the Witness and her husband, but she can't remember what he looked like.  

More crying and some cocks after the break.

Dennis Quaid: Two gay guys, some cops, a shrunken scientist, a footballer, and is that a dick shot?

 


Nazarenes didn't go to many movies, since it was a major sin, but in the summer of 1979 I managed to see the buddy comedy Breaking Away.  In the university town of Bloomington, Indiana, a group of working-class boys contemplate their future while swimming semi-nude in the limestone quarry where their dads work.  The hunky Mike (Dennis Quaid) wants to "light out to the territory" and become a cowboy. Moocher (Jackie Earl Haley) wants to marry his girlfriend. Dave (Dennis Christopher), wants to become Italian and win The Girl.


But you could easily ignore the heterosexist plot and concentrate on the primal beauty of the four friends sunning on the limestone.  In the end it was about friendship.

There's a more explicit, girl-free gay subtext in Enemy Mine (1985:  a future soldier named David and his enemy, a Drac named "Jerry" (Louis Gossett Jr.), are stranded on an alien planet,  and develop a touching, homoromantic bond.  They end up having a child together (boy Dracs don't need girl Dracs to get pregnant). When Jerry dies, David raises the child alone, and after they are rescued, returns with him to the Drac planet.


Dennis shows his butt for the first time -- but not the last -- in The Big Easy, a 1986 neo-noir about a New Orleans cop who plays by his own rules -- don't they all? -- and falls in love with a girl.










There's also reputedly a dick shot, but I can't find it.  Unless this is it.










Or this blob as he prepares to have sex with his girlfriend.









More Quaid after the break

"Going Dutch": Military sitcom with an Old Soldier, a gay tease, and a muscular private (sigh). With bonus private's privates

 


In the last few days, I've started a dozen movies and tv shows that seemed promising -- guys gazing at each other on the icon, a trailer with buddy-bonding -- only to start them, and the focus character is kissing a woman by Minute 1.  The constant gay teasing is getting annoying.  Why tailor your project to attract viewers who are going to turn it off in 20 seconds?  

I'm so frustrated that I'm going to review something at random, the first "new!" title that appears on Hulu, Going Dutch: "After an epically unfiltered rant, an arrogant, loudmouth U.S. Army Colonel is reassigned to the Netherlands, where he is punished with a command position at the least important army base in the world. 

An army comedy?  Yuck!  But here goes, Episode 1.1:



Scene 1: USAG Baumholder Command Center. 
I don't know what USAG means. Google says a gymnastics association, but that can't be right.   

Two army guys walk down the hall, the Old Guy (Dennis Leary, left) giving the Swishy Guy notes on how to introduce him: "Mention the Rangers, give America an erection."  Google says that the Rangers are an ice hockey team.

Swishy Guy: "I'll mention your Medal of Honor and your tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, and end up with your daughters, so you'll come off as a family man, and everyone will love you."

Old one: "No, don't mention them. I don't want to be beloved. I need to be tough, this close to Russia!"  Dude, you're in the Netherlands.  Russia is five countries and 2500 km away.

Swishy one: "We shouldn't mention how eager you are to start World War III." 

Scene 2: They meet with the Commander, General Davidson, who immediately asks about his daughters. "I hear you're a grandfather now."  Sorry, dude, he wants a family man.

Old Guy doesn't know what he means.  Oh, the baby?  "That's not a human being yet, more of a blob." Maybe stick with starting World War III.

Uh-oh, Old Guy was told that he was going to be the Commander.  Change of plans: he was caught on tape calling General Davidson a bleep, so he's in charge of  USAG Stroopsdorf, a supply center: "The least important army base in the world." 


Scene 3: 
 They walk through the Stroopsdorf Base: a miniature golf course, an outdoor fitness center. Old Guy is outraged at a "fat hippie on a bike."  Where's the discipline?   He vows to turn "this dump" into a proper combat base. 

Next, a tour of the fromagerie, the bowling alley, and the laundry, the three things Stroopsdorf is known for.

Plus a teen center with a sign "Reading is radical."  There are no teens on the base, so civilians from town use it for pool and video games. Old Guy tries to eject  "a small time gigolo" and a very muscular Private. 

Left: Small Time Gigolo is played by Icelandic actor Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson

Scene 4: The Interim Commander, a blond woman, addresses the troops: they have new headphones to use on the treadmills in the gym. No one mentioned Old Guy's wife. She must be dead, so he and Interim Commander can start a  "will they or won't they" romance.

Nope, she is his estranged daughter!  The Commander didn't mention that little detail.

She cut off all contact with him two years ago, but he didn't notice, because he "was busy saving America."  But working together will be an even worse punishment thatn being assigned to a "Dutch Club Med.


Scene 5
: Swishy Guy flirts with Muscular Private as he plays foosball.  Wouldn't you?  Asked "What does your X/O mean?", he responds "I'm the Commander of Hugs and Kisses." Smooth move, dude.  But he impresses Muscular by winning the foosball game, then rushes to the Commanders to note that everyone can hear them arguing.

Muscular Private is played by Dempsey Bryk, who has rather an androgynous presence, but plays a lot of muscular guys (top photo).

Swishy Guy is played by Danny Pudi, who is heterosexual, but played a gay-subtext character on Community.  It's probably the same here: swishy as a gay tease, but soon to be outed as straight.

Interin Commander notes that they are marching in the Tulip Festival tomorrow, the first time they have been invited, so their presence is "crucial to diplomatic relations."  

More after the break