Hercules Falling is the first feature directed by Christian Bonke, which premiered in the First Feature section of the Black Nights Festival. In many ways, it arrives as yet another overambitious Nordic production that collapses under the weight of its own pretensions. Directed with a heavy hand and an even heavier sense of self-satisfaction, this Danish effort attempts to repackage mythological echoes into a contemporary drama set on a Danish island. The result is a film that feels simultaneously laboured and hollow, a two-hour exercise in stylistic gloss that defies the attempts at rawness.
The plot unfolds with exhausting thoroughness. Our central figure is Henrik “Hercules” Larsen, a former elite soldier now attempting to lead a civilised life with his family. He is suffering from PTSD, which he tries to cope with as best as he can. Along the way, the audience is subjected to scene after scene of Henrik brooding in sparse Copenhagen interiors, exchanging terse dialogues with his estranged spouse about their child, navigating awkward industry functions, and confronting the inner demons within himself.
At 105 minutes, Hercules Falling drags relentlessly. The script, written by Bonke together with Marianne Lentz, never rises above a relentlessly straightforward recounting of events, applying the same flat approach to both its visual style and its narrative beats. The attempts at satire are painfully obvious and consistently misfire; the jokes, when they appear, are lame and self-congratulatory. When the story finally tries to pivot toward thriller territory with a supposed late twist, the manoeuvre arrives far too late to generate any genuine tension.
The film’s most glaring weakness lies in its desperate, self-conscious effort to sidestep conventional clichés. The creators evidently congratulated themselves for rejecting the standard redemption arc, the explosive final confrontation, and the triumphant hero’s return. In avoiding these familiar patterns, however, they have produced something far worse: a story that feels utterly predictable and strangely lifeless. Every narrative decision seems calculated to signal sophistication and subversion, yet the outcome is a plodding, tension-free procession of events that offers neither surprise nor emotional depth.
Hercules Falling apart
The ending doesn’t make the film more interesting; rather, it leaves the spectator thinking, “That was it?”, and it repeats a theme seen in several other films, one of which won an Oscar. What might have been a sharp critique of power, propaganda, and the cult of military celebrity instead becomes a carefully neutralised product – safe enough to secure funding, just provocative enough to fool festival selectors, yet drained of any real vitality or insight. It is the director’s first fiction film, but his experience in documentaries shines through with the mix of professionals and amateurs.
Dar Salim is an overwhelming presence in Hercules Falling. During the end credits, he is listed as some kind of co-director. What that means exactly is unclear, but apparently, there was some tension on the set, as reported in Danish magazines. It is easy to sympathise with the project, and the fact that real war veterans were part of the cast points to the earnest intentions. Still, it’s difficult to bypass how pedestrian the film feels, even though it fights hard to avoid the most obvious clichés. In that regard, it resembles The Smashing Machine.
This is not the sort of film that earns a prominent spot on any Disapproval list; it is too pedestrian, too calculated, and ultimately too inconsequential for such distinction. It simply exists as a glossy artefact of contemporary Nordic funding priorities that says nothing of substance about the issues it pretends to examine. Anyone considering a viewing would be well-advised to wait until it drifts onto a streaming platform, then reconsider entirely. The cinematography will lose little on a smaller screen, and two hours of one’s life are far too valuable to waste on something this resolutely lifeless.
Hercules Falling does not fall with any dramatic flair. It simply slumps, taking the audience’s interest down with it in a slow, inevitable descent into mediocrity. Surprisingly, the film walked away with two awards. The FIPRESCI prize was maybe not so unexpected, considering the members of that jury, but the First Feature award was incomprehensible. There were several more interesting films in that strand, not least Pascal Schuh’s Interior. This is certainly no match for the excellent Sound of Falling.
