13/08/2021 - You have the right to enjoy Hannes Þór Halldórsson’s Icelandic buddy cop action-comedy. And to remain silent, obviously

Cop Secret [+see also:
trailer
interview: Hannes Þór Halldórsson
interview: Hannes Þór Halldòrsson
film profile], an action-packed spectacle directed by – and this is a true story – an Icelandic footballer and a goalkeeper for the national team (Hannes Þór Halldórsson), is a lot of dumb fun. It’s also not a festival film in any sense of the word, proving that whatever is happening in Locarno’s main competition this year is very, very confusing. But who cares, as long as you get glossy car chases out of it and a villain named Rikki Ferrari (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) who, with his modelling past, seems to have escaped straight from the set of Zoolander.

Rikki is up to no good, and you know it because he insists on speaking in English. He is taking advantage of – the nerve! – Icelandic people’s innocent love of football, as with an important game fast approaching, all eyes are on the field and the women’s team, and certainly not on some banks. With one exception, however: daredevil supercop Bússi (Auðunn Blöndal), who, to borrow Axel Foley’s expression, certainly thinks he is Clint Eastwood and apparently shot a stork once in front of pre-schoolers. Paired up with a much calmer partner, always complaining that he is driving too fast or beating up too many people, he finally finds a true match in an even more supercop-ish Hörður, a pansexual snack claiming it’s the “sexy soul” that turns him on. Egill Einarsson, who plays the part, was once apparently known as “DJ Muscleboy” AND “Gillz and Gillzenegger” when dabbling in music. You just gotta love this country.

What turns Bússi on are men, plain and simple, but he can’t accept it just yet, hiding his secret the best way movie cops can – by drinking excessively, piling up pizza boxes and mumbling things angrily at people, including his girlfriend, who wishes him well but still would like to get laid. Despite their initial rivalry, the two cops have to pair up anyway, using Hörður’s personal knowledge of Rikki from their early modelling years. And kudos to the director for providing the pictures to prove it.

It’s ridiculous, and a storyline about one man’s conflicted relationship with his own sexuality doesn’t really add any weight. Also because, as someone points out here, it’s 2021 and nobody cares, baby. All of this means that this proposition – delivered with a mainstream flair that makes Reykjavík look like the right place for Vin Diesel to drive into another skyscraper – approaches parody but never crosses that line. It pretty much sticks to the fabulous rules of the genre, to stern supervisors always listing the damage, cheesy close-ups and one-liners, the kind that nobody really dares to utter any more. “You have the right to shut the fuck up!” You really do, so have fun with it until someone decides it’s not kosher.

Cop Secret was produced by Iceland’s Pegasus Pictures, and its world sales are handled by alief.