Subtle, nuanced, and delicate.

| Original Score: B | Jul 11, 2020

Grim and gripping in equal parts, this unapologetically dour Norwegian drama depicts a notorious sequence of events on the icy prison island of Bastoy in 1915.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 15, 2020

An uncomfortably haunting journey to the breaking point of the human spirit, which, despite its few missteps along the will stay with you long after you leave the cinema.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 25, 2019

Helstad and Nilssen deliver outstanding dramatic performances.

| Aug 23, 2018

It's a very measured account of how men will accept their fates to a degree, slowly coil up and then spring with anger.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 2, 2012

A slow-burning but satisfying drama that persuasively blends elements of Scum and Papillon.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 17, 2012

The acting is superb and director Marius Holst's embellishment of the facts keeps your attention throughout.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 6, 2012

There's an impressive force to the performances and, amid the ice and snow, the film burns with a sense of injustice that deservedly made it a hit in Norway.

| Jul 1, 2012

Very good but very heavy; the film's chilly, snow-blasted environs accurately reflect the tale's dour tone.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 30, 2012

Based on a true story, there is a dramatic force here, even if the whole is a trifle long and repetitive.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 29, 2012

A slow-burning film with echoes of Papillon in its celebration of an indomitable human spirit.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 29, 2012

Robust acting and crisp direction eases the old-rope material through to the inevitable conflagration.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 28, 2012

beneath the staid, ordered, colour-dulled surfaces of Marius Holst's King of Devil's Island lurk various forms of hypocrisy, corruption and abuse, suggesting something very rotten in the (then) state of Norway.

Full Review | Jun 28, 2012

A grim treatise on the origins of violence, with excellent performances from the largely unknown young cast.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 27, 2012

This may be a familiar tale - rough-around-the edges dissenter against a barbaric system - but it's well told and the icy wastes of the island provide a chilling backdrop to the cruelty dealt out to the boys.

Full Review | Jun 27, 2012

A bleakly beautiful, austere film that doesn't patronise its audience.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 27, 2012

Rather one-note in its bleakness, and doesn't have a vast amount to say beyond 'reform school sucks'.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 26, 2012

It's pleasing to see something from the Nordic countries that doesn't involve police procedure and chunky jumpers.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 20, 2012

King of Devil's Island is poetic story of friendship and adolescence in the bleak, cold and brutal 1915 Bastoy. It's a snow covered, potent mixture of Sleepers, Shawshank Redemption and Lord of the Flies.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 7, 2012

The true events on which the film are based are wonderfully stranger than fiction, and by the end of the film I was deeply moved and thrilled by what I had seen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 6, 2012