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Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Blistering performances.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Sprängaren is my second familiarisation with a film based on Liza Marklund's work and Annika Bengtzon's character (after Den Röda Vargen) and - being a follower of Scandinavian crime films - I cannot say I am impressed (again). True, I have not read any Marklund's books either, but the plot is too fabulous and long, contains under-action not providing additional value to the film (e.g. disagreements within the newspaper and at home), and the evildoer could be guessed too soon. Well, there are some good performances (Helena Bergström as Annika Bengtzon and Örjan Ramberg as Anders Schyman), but overall course of events has holes and all the motives of the evildoer remained without thorough explanation.Even if you prefer crime dramas with strong female leading characters, I would definitely recommend Forbrydelsen, Bron/Broen or even Dicte or Anna Pihl, all exceeding in smoothness and maintaining tension.

I watched this film on TV eleven years after it was made, with absolutely no background knowledge of the book or the stars. I live on the other side of the world.I found it very interesting - the office politics, and the portrayal of a couple of professionals with young children, trying to balance all the demands of modern life. These things were more interesting to me, than the plot about the death of the public figure and the matter of who was responsible for her death and the following attacks. The performances were very good, and I thought Helena Bergstrom's performance was excellent. I've read in other 'reviews' on IMDb that the author of the book is a similar person -( journalist with a leading newspaper,) to the role that she played - Annika. No doubt this is why the realistic portrayal of the daily challenges at the office was so interesting to me. I was not bothered that the author may have written about herself, not knowing about that at the time of watching the film. Therefore, I was free to appreciate the film for what it is - with no background baggage. And all the hype mentioned which took place at the time of release, - well - I missed it! I don't understand how people found it boring - maybe they don't enjoy dialog and observing human nature.

Can a movie be so awful it's actually physically harmful to watch? "Sprängaren" comes close. I had never watched any of Colin Nutley's pictures before this one, and I can safely say that I will never deliberately watch another one. This is so bad it should be used as a user manual for how not to make a movie. I honestly can't think of a single thing in this tedious waste of film that doesn't suck to high heavens. The story, which isn't that interesting in the first place, unravels at the pace of a dead man running a marathon. The direction is standard fresh-out-of-film-school, "hey-look-I-just-found-a-camera-in-the-garbage-can" stuff, stunning in its ineptitude and seemingly aggressive refusal to be interesting. The acting is so good it almost rivals the works of Ben Affleck in terms of charisma and enthusiasm. To be honest, for the first half hour I could've sworn I was watching a satirical comedy about zombie journalists. As for Helena Bergström, she deserves a special mention because it really boggles my mind how she EVER became as famous (even by Swedish standards) as she is now. She has no acting talent whatsoever and she has a face like the rear end of an infected hamster. Sorry Helena, but it's true and you know it, no matter what your husband says.Moving on to smaller, yet crucial aspects of the film, the sound, musical score, and lightning is so sickeningly off in almost every single scene that it hurts to watch. The music, for the most part, has nothing to do with what's going on on-screen, the dialogue is muffled and there is a very lazy (and ineffective) use of natural lightning throughout. To be honest, only one scene didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon, and it was a five-second shot of some trees. I guess this is a major achievement for someone like Nutley.The stunning amount of reviewers here who gave the film more than 3/10 makes me want to commit acts of terrorism myself. How can you find anything about this movie good??Send this film to Guantanamo where it belongs... as a torture device.

This movie is based on the very popular book (with the same name) by Swedish author Liza Marklund. Taking it's place in Stockholm in the winter of 2003/2004, this movie takes place in an alternative future. Stockholm got to be the host of the 2004 summer olympics, instead of Athens.The provocative reporter and journalist Annika Bengtzon works on the newspaper KvällsPressen. Suddenly, the Victoria Arena (built especially for the summer olympics) gets bombed. The movie follows the work of Annika as a reporter.This movie falls into the for Swedish people well-known "Colin-Nutley-Helena-Bergström"-movie. Ever since "Blackjack" (1990) Colin Nutley has been making films with Helena Bergström, and some other actors, such as Ewa Fröling and Reine Brynolfsson (both starring in "Sprängaren"). After ten years, it is rather boring to see Helena Bergström crying all the time.The only remarkable thing with this movie, apart from the actors, is the photography. Colin Nutley creates a certain feeling when he uses real TV newsreaders and such. Worth the money, but not "that" good - 2.5 out of 5.