Rembrandt

Reality sometimes outdoes fantasy. That a group of petty criminals should manage to steal the only Rembrandt painting in Danish possession without having the faintest idea of the valuable object they have got away with sounds like a proper tall tale, but it is also the plain truth.

Director Jannik Johansen and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen have taken rather emphatic inspiration from this incredible story, and the result is a successful film that spans the genres of comedy, drama and crime film.

Mick is a soon-to-be middle-aged scrap thief who does not dream of riches but simply wishes to stay out of prison so that he does not have to leave his girlfriend Trine again. Mick's son Tom has followed in his father's footsteps as a thief, but he still dreams of the big score. There is no prospect of that, however, when he accepts a commission to steal a painting from Nivågaard, but every little helps.

Tom and his nerdy friend Jimmy cannot handle the job on their own, so Tom persuades Mick and his not-too-bright protégé Kenneth to take care of the practical side, with the result that they steal the wrong picture. Suddenly they are in possession of a painting worth a great, great deal of money, but it soon turns out that it was easier to steal the painting than to get rid of it again.

In Rembrandt Anders Thomas Jensen shows once again that his witty dialogue can positively lift a film. Now and then it becomes too absurd or juvenile, but here he is in his element. Although the film is hardly an in-depth psychological character study, it is clear that the characters and their relationships interested the director and the screenwriter just as much as the heist story itself. In reality Rembrandt is closer to a social-realist tradition than to streamlined American heist films such as "Ocean's Eleven".