Television Review: Swedish Dicks (Season 1, 2016)
A few years ago, a well-known Croatian media figure posted on Facebook that, after years of tilting at windmills, he’d had enough and was leaving Croatia to try and find a new life in Sweden. While Sweden may appear as the promised land from the perspective of the average Croat—as it does for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Third World—even among Swedes themselves, there are those who believe the grass is greener on other hills. One such individual is Ingmar Andersson (Peter Stormare), the protagonist of the Swedish-American comedy series Swedish Dicks, who traded Sweden’s generous social benefits and comfortable lifestyle for a more thrilling existence in much sunnier Los Angeles. There, he worked for a time as a stuntman, but the tragic death of a colleague and best friend pushed him to start a new career as a private detective. At the very beginning of the series, he meets his compatriot Axel Kruse (Johan Glans) as one of his clients; Kruse had tried to find happiness as a DJ but turns out to be far better suited to detective work. The two begin collaborating, with Ingmar perpetually overshadowed by rival private detective Jane McKinney (Traci Lords), while his Korean cleaner Sun (Vivian Bang) and his daughter Sarah (Felisha Cooper), a successful lawyer, assist him in his investigations.
The series was conceived by Stormare himself, a character actor who had clearly grown tired of stealing roles as Russian villains from Rade Šerbedžija. With Swedish Dicks, he likely relished not only the rare chance to play a lead role but also the opportunity to portray an alternative version of himself. However, it seems the creative energy dried up once the premise of him as a private detective took shape, and other members of the creative team were neither willing nor able to compensate for this shortfall. Swedish Dicks, whose first season comprises ten episodes originally aired in Sweden in 2016, feels like a show where minimal effort was invested; many ideas that could have formed engaging plots or characters are barely mentioned and left entirely undeveloped. This applies equally to the comedic dynamic between the older, experienced Ingmar and his younger colleague Axel, as well as to the Swedish-American cultural clash. Instead, the writers cram each episode’s twenty-odd minutes with generic humour, and when that falls flat, Stormare pads the runtime with film noir-style narration that only underscores the lack of scriptwriting inspiration. Add to this a noticeably low budget, with only a handful of recognisable actors in minor roles hinting at any connection to Hollywood mainstream ambition.
That said, not everything in Swedish Dicks is dismal. Occasional bright spots emerge—whether from the hyperactive Vivian Bang effortlessly outshining both Stormare and Glans, or Keanu Reeves radiating what might be the most charisma he’s ever displayed in his career during a few brief scenes. Though critics weren’t overly impressed, the series secured a second season; its subsequent cancellation in 2018, however, was hardly surprising.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
(Note: The text in the original Croatian version was posted here.)
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