Jägarna

The Hunters is a Swedish crime thriller set in the forested region of Norrland up north, to which the policeman Erik returns after several years of service in Stockholm. As a young man he fled the area where he grew up because of a tyrannical and violent father, who has just died when the film begins. Erik moves into his childhood home, where his brother Leif, close to him in age, still lives. It turns out, however, that Leif has been incurably damaged by the father's reign of terror.

When Erik declares that he has decided to stay, the reception among the local people is warm, and Erik can even look forward to being named homecomer of the year. The friendliness abruptly ends, however, when Erik proves highly interested in getting to the bottom of the widespread poaching that the local police have so far tacitly accepted. Erik gets outside help from the public prosecutor Anna when a human life is at stake, and gradually it dawns on him that his brother is part of the gang, but solving the crimes is made difficult because everyone in the area is related to everyone else in some way and covers for one another. Erik, on the other hand, is more stubborn than anyone had reckoned with.

What is special about The Hunters - apart from the excellent entertainment value and the fine acting - is Kjell Sundvall's way of presenting the story. The film works almost like a western, with the hunters as the brutal rednecks the surrounding community covers for. At moments the hunters are reminiscent of the inbred white trash in "Deliverance".