"In the tradition of multinational European auteurism, 'Valhalla' puts a Sergio Leone hero in a Werner Herzog landscape, filmed in Scotland, with mostly British actors playing bands of Nordic warriors. The Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, star of Mr. Refn’s 'Pusher' trilogy of crime films, does his best Clint Eastwood as One Eye, a scarred, silent pagan killing machine who has blood-red visions of the future." (NY Times)But is it boring? Yes. Holy shit, yes.
"And in the course of this haunting, often grueling film, Mr. McQueen makes you acutely conscious of the relationship between language and action, the gap between relatively abstract terms like 'resistance,' 'radicalism' and 'hunger strike' and the concrete deeds that give them flesh. The scope of 'Hunger' is too narrow, its methods too intensive, to offer anything like a full historical analysis of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and it does not really set out to explain why Sands and his comrades did what they did. Instead Mr. McQueen shows how they did it, and in what circumstances, and the fruit of his inquiry is both horrifying and, strange to say, beautiful." (NY Times)But is it boring? Yes, but it's redeemed by a welcome stretch of dialogue in the second act, if something this boring can be said to have acts.
