The Wave (Bølgen)

Dir: Roar Uthaug

2015

****

Roar Uthaug's action/thriller/disaster movie is a pretty standard action/thriller/disaster movie with all the clichés you'd expect, however, it uses all the usual ingredients and makes something rather impressive out of them. Firstly, the premise is a realistic one, which is a pretty good start for a film in the genre.  I like the idea of a young aspiring Norwegian film lover (Roar Uthaug), growing up on films such as Twister and Armageddon and thinking, I want to do that but I don't want to go to Hollywood, I'm going to make a disaster film right here (although Hollywood were straight on the phone once The Wave was released). And why not, Norway sits on giant wobbly rocks (technical term) and is prone to rock-slides. These rock-slides can cause huge tsunamis as they fall into the rivers and lakes below, with many town being overcome within a matter of minutes. There is a history of such events, in 1905 60 people were killed by a similar incident, in 1934 the village of Tafjord was destroyed by a tsunami killing forty people and then just two years later 74 people lost their lives under the same circumstances within a few miles away. There is something quite refreshing about seeing normal people being destroyed, rather than just landmarks and cardboard cut outs. The best disaster films are the ones that are either outrageously over the top, are five hour long melodramas or, as is the case with The Wave, are frighteningly believable. The film follows Kristian (played by Kristoffer Joner, last seen in The Revenant) a geologist working in the local avalanche early warning centre. The first cliché is that it is his last day on the job before moving his family to the City to start an office job. When certain readings take he and his team by surprise, his gut feelings are that there is a serious problem. His team are less concerned (cliché number two). He and his daughter decide to spend one last night in their old house, while his wife (Ane Dahl Torp of Dead Snow fame) and son decide to stay in the hotel that she works at which is nearer the ferry they are due to catch the next morning. A family apart with a bloody great disaster about to happen between them, it's far from original. The son is also a rather annoying character and a few of the extras are typical disaster fodder that you can see coming a mile off. The story gets a little bit silly, it's formulaic and far too much time is spend on characters standing still, looking at the slow moving wave, instead of running the hell away from it in the opposite direction. It's almost as if the viewer can't see the wave unless one of the cast are looking straight at it. However, the intensity and overall suspense in the film is of a high quality, you do care about the characters and even the most scathing of critics will find themselves on the edge of their seats. The special effects are impressive and never overdone, this may well be due to a small budget but no one like a gratuitous disaster film, the aftermath is just as effective, if not more so. A refreshing addition to a genre where we've seen it all before.