The Last Viking Review: Nowhere Man’s Money

Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas reunite in The Last Viking, a visually stunning but tonally inconsistent Danish dark comedy.

Anker (Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein) emerges from a fifteen-year prison sentence for bank robbery, eager to reclaim the fortune he entrusted his brother Manfred (Mads Mikkelsen, Another Round) to bury at his request during his incarceration. The twist? Long-standing trauma has caused Manfred to develop dissociative identity disorder, and he genuinely cannot remember where he stashed the money. What begins as a simple retrieval mission spirals into a bizarre odyssey through fractured memories and sibling baggage. Violent creditors and unexpected Beatles impersonations complicate matters further.

It begins playfully, with Jensen opening the film with a beautiful curveball: an elegant animated sequence recounting a folk tale that thematically mirrors the story about to unfold. It’s a clever misdirect that might leave audiences wondering if they’ve wandered into the wrong theater, underscored by Jeppe Kaas’s score that balances mythic grandeur with tender piano cues. This whimsical flourish establishes the tonal complexity Jensen is attempting to achieve, though it also foreshadows the film’s struggle to maintain narrative cohesion.

While Mikkelsen remains the marquee draw, it’s Lie Kaas who truly steals the film. His portrayal of Anker is magnificently layered and deliberately slippery—a man who refuses to fully believe in his brother’s condition while maintaining genuine affection for him. What could have been a thankless straight-man role becomes something quietly devastating as Lie Kaas navigates the space between skepticism and hope. Mikkelsen, meanwhile, brings his usual seriousness but leans more into aloof stoicism than his typical intensity. He’s committed to the looser comedic tone, even if it doesn’t showcase his strengths. This performance won’t be his Hollywood breakthrough moment (when is that coming, by the way?), but it’s further proof of his remarkable consistency.

Jensen reunites his core ensemble—Sofie Gråbøl (The Killing), Lars Brygmann, Bodil Jørgensen, and Søren Malling—for another spin in his dark-comedy sandbox. Gråbøl particularly shines as a meddling homeowner with the kind of nosy persistence that could only exist in rural fiction. She pokes, prods, and refuses to back off even when it’s clearly dangerous, adding friction when the film needs it most. Swedish actor Kardo Razzazi brings fresh energy, while drummer Peter Düring makes an intriguing acting debut.

Visually, The Last Viking is striking. Cinematographer Sebastian “Makker” Blenkov captures the forest near Tollered with painterly care, turning the landscape into a reflection of the characters’ mental states: claustrophobic, then open, then obscured. Costume designer Manon Rasmussen creates bold contrasts against this natural backdrop, with earth tones clashing against garish throwbacks much like the characters themselves. The sound design proves equally thoughtful, with Kaas’s warm compositions deliberately clashing against moments of cold violence.

However, the tonal shifts are hard to ignore, and here’s where Jensen loses his footing. For a story supposedly driven by urgency—hidden money, violent creditors—the film sags considerably in its middle sections. Some scenes overstay their welcome, others feel like sketches that never found their punchline. The editing needed tightening, the stakes clarifying. While Scandinavian cinema has never shied away from tonal whiplash, the shifts between dark comedy and brutal violence here feel more jarring than purposeful. One minute we’re giggling at an off-key Beatles cover band, the next we’re cringing as someone’s nose gets crushed by a burly fist.

The film may not be aiming for cultural relevance, but it subtly explores modern anxieties about identity, fractured reality, and undermined trust, familiar 21st-century concerns filtered through a Danish absurdist lens. There’s something in the subtext about how men, particularly siblings, process trauma, memory, and loyalty, although Jensen never fully explores these themes. These aren’t overt messages, but they hum beneath the surface. You might not walk away with answers, but you’ll have questions worth turning over.

The Last Viking embodies solid craftsmanship yet falls short of greatness. It offers moments of genuine humor and enough bloodshed to satisfy genre expectations, but its refusal to fully embrace its darker impulses leaves it feeling half-baked. While it provides a worthwhile showcase for its talented cast and gorgeous locations, it won’t rank high among this collaborative team’s impressive body of work. Jensen’s signature blend of violence and whimsy requires more precise calibration than what’s achieved here, resulting in a film that’s pleasant enough to watch but unlikely to linger long in memory. Come for Mikkelsen. Stay for Lie Kaas. And if you’re lucky, you might leave with a weird Beatles cover stuck in your head.

The Last Viking (Den Sidste Viking) was screened at TIFF on September 5-13, 2025.