‘The Last Viking’ review: Mads Mikkelsen stars in Anders Thomas Jensen’s wry Danish comedy

Dir/scr: Anders Thomas Jensen. Denmark/Sweden. 2025. 116mins

With The Last Viking, Danish star, screenwriter and occasional director Anders Thomas Jensen (Adam’s Apples, Riders of Justice) brings another one of his blackly comic, absurdly violent tales to the screen with enviable ease. Working like a well-oiled machine, despite the occasional longueur, this is the kind of film that mostly goes in the directing you’re expecting but it’s all so well done.

 Fast, furious and frequently funny

Regular co-stars Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Mads Mikkelsen play siblings who don’t really see eye to eye because of a shared traumatic past that mostly feels emotionally credible, even if the film is first and foremost a very dark — and not very politically correct — comedy. Playing out of competition in Venice, it should be a solid seller for TrustNordisk.  

The narrative’s main timeline kicks off when Anker (Kaas) is released from jail for good behaviour 15 years after a major robbery. As per instructions from Anker, the loot was buried by his brother Manfred (Mikkelsen), the former problem child of the family who has dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). Anker hopes to finally get his hands on the money but his sibling now wants to be called ‘John’ –  because he thinks he’s John Lennon – and John has no intention of telling Anker where exactly the money can be found, because how would the Liverpudlian musician know where that would be?  

After a more painterly and stately-paced animated opening, the early going is fast, furious and frequently funny – even if it is clear from the outset that Manfred/John’s disorder is played for laughs, which may not sit well with all viewers. Most of the story is set in and around the siblings’ creaky childhood home, a vast wooden mansion in a secluded end of the woods that production designer Nikolaj Danielsen has drawn up with Gothic glee. 

The building is now owed by a bickering couple (Sofie Gråbøl, Søren Malling) who rent out some of the rooms. The owners are typical Jensen-like creations: she’s a vain former hand model who’s now into boxing while he’s a former designer who is trying to write a children’s book while living off the money from an explosive airbag accident that ruined his face. Though on paper these characters might read like a few oddball characteristics thrown together, the screenplay and performances make them believable – even if the universe they inhabit is clearly a heightened, more violent and darkly comic version of reality. 

The various characters converge around the mansion. Anker hopes to find the money buried somewhere nearby; John and some newfound friends have started a band that will practice there; and Friendly Flemming (Nicolas Bro), a former criminal colleague of Anker’s, has decided he also wants to have the money – and he’s got a few bloody techniques for getting it up his sleeve. Add to that the presence of poor Freja (Bodil Jørgensen), the boys’ third sibling, and you have a recipe for a lot of people getting the short end of some very hard-hitting sticks.   

Mikkelsen, bespectacled and with the worst perm in recent cinematic history, underplays his character’s condition, making audiences root for this grown-up version of a very hurt child. Jensen uses flashbacks to Anker and Manfred’s difficult childhood with their father (Lars Ranthe) to further flesh out their shared traumatic past which, as the title suggests, also involves Vikings. Though this is by far the most manipulative part of the narrative, Jensen finds the right dosage for the flashbacks and, while not particularly original, makes the brothers’ backstory the emotional pivot on which the entire story turns.

Cinematographer Sebastian Blenkov’s widescreen canvas is lush, even if a lot of what occurs happens in the dark, while Eddie Simonsen’s sound design is also superb, making sure the audience feels the impact of every literal and metaphorical blow.