And also a wonderful beginning, a real quick start. It keeps you yearning and waiting for is about to come. Unfortunately the high adrenaline dries off quickly, but most certainly after half the movie is over.

And it's a shame, because this movie has really good ideas and explores many of them thoroughly. But that is also one of it's faults. By exploring too many things, it get's mixed up into to many things, so in the end you're too confused to follow any plot or characters. It's very dark and moody, but that doesn't help much, if it's also genre hopping just to try to fit any- and everything in it's story!

Swedish film is subject to a completely different scale of judgment when I sit down to write a review. When i review a Hollywood movie my demands are much higher. And why? Simply because Hollywood has so much more invested in each film they release. The budget-constraints on a Swedish film probably doesn't even reach the catering-budget on a regular action-movie in Tinseltown.

"Storm" has become quite successful in Swedish theaters since it was released, it has also gained some admiration from critics. So of course i was curious, having passed on the opportunity to see the movie at the Stockholm Film Festival back in November of 2005. So, did it live up to the hype? Is the Swedish thriller of the year? Well, both yes and no.

Sometimes when i watch a movie i can like it more or less purely based on the ambition rather than the result. "Storm" is a bit like that. While i didn't enjoy the movie as much as i had hoped, i did enjoy the ambitions the film-makers obviously had. There are editing, shooting and effects here never before seen in a Swedish movie. While the rather modest budget shows in some more effects-laden sequences, the movie still looks good most of the time.

What surprised me the most is the lack of action. When they promoted the film it seemed like it would be an action-movie. There would be athletic women in leather and high kicking. And there was, for a total of ten minutes throughout. The other 100 minutes is more of a drama, a movie about finding happiness and dealing with things instead of repressing them. Sound boring? Not as bad as you might think, in my book it's more about expectations. A big part of the reason why this works as well as it does is the acting. Eric Ericson as the main character "DD" is solid throughout, and Jonas Karlsson is in my opinion one of the best Swedish actors today which he shows here in a role far from what he usually does. Eva Röse also does well, both when it comes to dialog and high kicks.

In short, sure this is cheesy at times, overblown and rather pretentious. But still: there was at least the ambition to do something different! And that is what Swedish movies need, they have to get the opportunity to miss the target a couple of times. At least now things feel like they are moving forward. So while "Storm" is only half a success it's still important and I can see why so many people enjoy it. If the development goes on like this I suspect there will soon be a movie that I can enjoy as much.

The movie opens with a Matrix-style fighting scene which makes me fear that this is yet another Swedish action movie that tries to do more than its budget allows. But after that follows a few quite humorous scenes in which we are introduced to DD - a twenty-something guy who lives a bachelor life in a dark dystopian Stockholm and is content with that; until some very strange people come around, and everything that happens seems to be about him in some way.

At first, the viewer is tempted to try and figure out what is dream and what is reality. But you just have to stop trying. The entire movie is surreal. It turns into a twisted mind game in which DD is the involuntary player and Eva Röse and Jonas Karlsson plays characters that try to guide him in different directions, where Lova (Röse) is apparent as the good one, even though everything gets very confusing. In a few sequences, the two are even shown as characters from computer games and comic books.

DD ends up in the small town of Vänersborg where he grew up, and in the desolate fog-shrouded surroundings he is forced to face teenage memories in a couple of very unpleasant scenes.

This is one of the most unpredictable movies I've ever seen. There is just no way of telling where the story is going, except for the fact that DD must open the mysterious metal box he's been given.

The cinematography reminds me very much of The Matrix trilogy, but the directors have experimented a lot and that makes the movie very enjoyable from an aesthetic point of view. Other sources of inspiration seems to have been "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Game". Anyway, the mix of ideas works into a very strange film in which the directors have made the very most of their budget (except for a few times when they use some really old horror-movie effects). The crazy sci-fi-thriller-action-drama-horror-circus leads on to a very touching finale in which some of the many loose ends are tied up.

I liked this movie a lot. And even though it's far from perfect, it is a very fresh new creation in Swedish film when it certainly is needed.