Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

thecatcanwait Is this a homicide detective or a bespectacled primary school teacher i see before me in that thick wool knit jumper? With his frumpy dumpy side kick. Who looks like she might have knitted the jumper for him. Turns out he – Erlendur – (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson) is no pussy though. Hard as a bag of hammers with his glasses off.What more can you want? Murder "thriller" set in chilly Iceland. Usually I don't do crime capers. But gets a vigorous nod of interest simply for being set in Sigur Rosland. Merely point the camera at all that moody isolation and bleak melancholy – and you've got wild and windy (and woolly) scenarios immediately on tap. Elemental my dear Watson.A choiry backing track gets a bit annoying piping off a portentous kind of churchy religiosity.Understanding information-ladened subplots while reading subtitles is tricky/tiring/tiresome.In the end this is standard issue telly crime, the kind of police procedural that rolls out the ITV pop-slot ad-nausem at 9 o'clock (although this was shown on BBC 4, the go-to channel for miserable subtitled Scandinavian crime drama) Mind you, Inspector Frost wouldn't tuck into a plate of singed sheep's head for his supper (while reading a bit of Bible) But this is Iceland after all – the land of ice and idiosyncrasy.

chinasimon This is an excellent film; the washed out palette and grisly subject matter mean that it won't be a multiplex crowd pleaser, but it's well worth seeking out: the mystery is cunningly untangled, the themes are powerful and the characters well drawn. The wild Icelandic landscape looks like the surface of Mars - there are even smoking craters - and is used to great effect; often it's contrasted with banal interiors. The characters are a dour bunch - hey, that's Iceland - but the good guys are likable and idiosyncratic. One thing that really appealed to me was the way the film draws upon and updates the classic tropes of the Icelandic saga: a crazy warrior, family secrets, the sins of the fathers visited on the sons, etc. Overall, I would rank this as one of the best contemporary noir films.

aardvark-6 Baltasar Kormákur was there to answer questions at the first screening of this excellent film at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007. He did a terrific job, both of directing the film and of untangling some of the details for us after the screening.This was a film that we picked up at the last minute, to see on the first day of the festival. We went in with absolutely no expectations and were thrilled to find one of the best films of the festival laid out before us.Everything about this film was outstanding: casting, sets and locations, acting, directing, and the subtitling was unobtrusive but effective. It has a wonderful black humour to it in spots, too. No wonder Iceland has chosen this film as its Oscar contender.I know I'll see this film again! Not only that, but I've ordered all of the books in the series by Arnaldur Idridason that I could find in translation, because I found his story so compelling and want to read the further adventures of Detective Erlendur. I sincerely hope Kormákur directs more of them.

Adam Wallace Jar City is an excellent police procedural thriller, yet also far more than just that. It takes the biggest issues in human life, loss, past secrets, family loyalties, human decency and wasted lives and spins them into a flawless thread with the traditional fare of the detective plot, hidden crimes, corruption, suspense and plot twists.The filming style is refreshing for anyone raised on Hollywood who-dunnit's, with real locations and down to earth acting; on a par with Mississippi Burning IMO. That it's in Icelandic as an English speaker made no difference to me, I was gripped by this film. Jar City, the frailty of human life displayed!