Ole Christian Madsen’s unpredictable Danish resistance war film winds and twists through the violent public assassinations and equally volatile private lives of its charismatic freedom fighters Flammen AKA Bent (Thure Lindhardt) and Citronen AKA Jorgen (Mads Mikkelsen).
Fitting nicely against Verhoeven’s “Black Book,” “Flame & Citron” covers the careers of its code-named resistance fighters who served in an elite cell as daring assassins of Danish collaborators and Nazi officials during WWII.
Although separated in age by more than ten years, the duo share an abiding friendship that compensates for their differences of temperament. Flammen, so named for his unmistakable red hair, is the more fearless of the two but is not as unflappable as he would like to believe. His weakness for a woman of dubious background exacts a heavy toll.
Citronen, however, has more to prove because he has chosen to fight rather than care for his needy wife and daughter.
The persuasive force of the film falls squarely on Lindhardt’s and Mikkelsen’s shoulders as experienced actors whose gifts for sustaining layers of motivational subtext is utterly satisfying.
It’s intriguing to consider that under modern conditions the two heroes would be Iraqi, and the Nazis would be American.
