Adam's Apples

Variety

A funny, politically incorrect and, somewhere deep down, thoughtful black comedy, "Adam's Apples" is the third and final film in helmer-writer Anders Thomas Jensen's excellent trilogy centered on oddballs and misfits in Denmark.

The New York Times

The Danish writer and director Anders Thomas Jensen's 2005 feature, "Adam's Apples" — about a neo-Nazi sentenced to community service at a rural church run by a sunshine-and-lollipops vicar — is one of the latest examples of the post-"Pulp Fiction" bloody comedy. It's also one of the weirdest, mixing glib humor with dead-serious spiritual inquiry.

New Zealand Herald

A surreal parable punctuated with violent episodes is shockingly hilarious but empty-hearted.

Los Angeles Times

Pitched somewhere between religious parable and slapstick, the black-hearted satire "Adam's Apples" has something important to say about the nature of redemption. Or perhaps it just wants to seem like it does. Like his countryman Lars von Trier, the Danish writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen mixes spiritual inquiry with shell game, never quite tipping his hand as to what's sincere and what's said with a smirk.

Christchurch Press

Based on the Old Testament Book of Job, Jensen's first-class script mixes biblical allegories with a bizarre collection of quirky and quixotic characters. And central to the tale's success is another stand-out performance from Mikkelsen (After the Wedding, Casino Royale). Unflappably cool, calm and chatty, his scene-stealing priest delivers a sermon-ful of quotable lines - ``Evil? That's awfully rude to write that on someone's CV'' _ and a host of memorable moments (breaking off counselling with an alcoholic, pregnant woman to complain about an uneven number of cookies offered to them). Throw in Thomsen's (Mostly Martha) sensitive tough-guy and Jeppe Kaas' playful yet haunting score, and

Apples is a tasty, slightly-spicy treat well worth sampling.