Sound of Noise

The cop film, while being one of my favorite genres, rarely yields true originality anymore. But this highly inventive Swedish comedy takes the cop film in a direction we've never seen- or heard- before.
Amadeus Warnebring (Bengt Nilsson) was raised by musical prodigies and his younger brother is now the conductor of the most respected orchestra in Sweden. But being tone-deaf meant Amadeus and his family knew from a young age his future would lay elsewhere. Now he's a detective on the trail of a group of musical terrorists, whose aim is to shake up the world around them through vigilante acts of percussion.
The terrorists in question include four remarkably talented drummers with a disdain for the average piece of music and the law. They are led by a conductor named Magnus (Magnus Borjeson) and Sanna (Sanna Persson), whose wild musical experimentation got her kicked out of music school years earlier. This hasn't deterred her exploration in the least. The plan the six hatch is to perform a concert in four movements around their city. Not to kill anyone, not for money, but to bring exciting music to a world they feel sadly lacks it. The lengths they go to however are what make this a big case for the music hating Amadeus.
Written and directed by Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson, "Sound of Noise" has a spirit of fun that makes its premise really fly in ways that it wouldn't have had its creators been too smugly impressed with their own work. It has its flaws but they're largely forgiveable as the film as a whole is just so likeable. Its score, written by Bjoreson, and actually performed by his character's gang of "terrorists," is unlike any film score you've ever heard and perfectly captures the movie's world.
I'm very happy to recommend "Sound of Noise." Its one week run at the Varsity in Seattle ends tomorrow night but look for it soon on DVD and Blu-ray. 8/10.