IL CAPITANO

Combining edge-of-the-seat suspense with fluid cinematic movement, IL CAPITANO focuses on two killers, a young vagrant styling himself “Il Capitano” and his even younger girlfriend. In one stolen car after another, the couple journeys south from their native Finland on a theiving expedition that has Amsterdam as its rather abstract destination. En route, they drink, make love, and stumble upon a shotgun and ammo and kill, without hesitation, a father, a mother, and son who unexpectedly confront them in the remote countryside. The acutal killings are seen only in an oblique way, but this adds to, rather than subtracts from, the suspense at a time when the auidence has just settled down to a grudging liking of the two headstrong, yet powerless, pawns of fate. Avoiding cheap thrills and gore as will as any hint of social psychologizing, Troell's film is heightened by the subdued way in which it is told rather than through explosions of visually shocking violence.-The Hollywood Reporter In Finnish and Swedish with English subtitles.