~~~~
Rais-Nordentoft’s
diverting small town, coming-of-age drama depicts a few weeks in the life of an
ordinary teenaged boy (Jacob Krarup) as he divides his time between playing
football, going to school, masturbating, getting drunk, breaking and entering,
and trying to get in to the knickers of a pretty classmate (Marie Bach Hansen),
whilst not quite fending off the attentions of a friend’s Lolita-like little
sister (Lea Baastrup Rønne). Filled with hormonal teens, prone to grand
emotions and erratic behaviour, Kick'n Rush often feels painfully authentic.
However, its adult characters are considerably less well drawn, and as such
fail to give the film a mature core upon which to hang its adolescent
goings-on. Never the less, despite ample scope to do so, the fact that no one
grows, no one changes, and no one learns any lessons proves rather refreshing.
Despite
a distinct lack of evidence and a number of inconsistencies to her account of
events, a middle-aged police detective (Kristian Halken) decides to investigate
a camcorder-loving 18-year-old girl’s (Lea Baastrup Rønne) claims to have been
gang-raped by her boyfriend (Olaf Højgaard) and his friends, and quickly, for
one reason or another, begins to become obsessed with the case and/or her
much-filmed sexual veracity, in Rais-Nordentoft’s vaguely salacious yet
thoughtful and potent Danish drama. Rønne’s brave central performance proves
spellbinding.
