Finnish writer/director Teemu Nikki calls his third feature
film, Euthanizer (‘Armomurhaaja’, 2018), a violent
Finnish summer noir. The basic idea for the film is derived from the vigilante
genre films of 1970s and 80s; a lonely punisher prefers to deliver instant
justice to the wrongdoers. But despite the B-movie exploitation genre vibe,
Euthanizer has a fine emotional core, which brings forth a poignant examination
of suffering and cruelty. The fifty-year-old Veijo (the brilliant Matti Onnismaa, a veteran actor in his first leading role) runs a broken-down
auto-repair shop (‘Haukka's Repairs and End Solutions’) in a poor backwater
region of Finland. He has a side business as black-market pet euthanizer. Interestingly, Veijo
also happens to be an animal lover who claims to deeply understand and feel the
pain of animals. The hapless pet owners often bring their suffering pets since
they can’t afford the high fees demanded by local veterinary hospital, for
either healing or euthanizing them.
In the opening scene, we see Veijo leading the life of a hermit,
working from a derelict shed. The place is littered with pet carriers and
behind his house in the plot of trees, dog collars dangles from the branches. A
young woman brings her old, sick cat to be put to sleep. With a dead-pan stare,
Veijo explains that small animals get the gas, while the bigger ones are shot.
He has Jerry-rigged his car to turn it into a gas chamber. When the woman asks
if her cat will suffer, Veijo lists the suffering the cat has gone through as
her pet: from confinement to wasting illness (“your flat is a 20-odd square meter prison. The normal habitat for a feline is over a square kilometer. It
can’t be replaced by an evening cuddle”, he casually remarks). After gassing
the cat, Vejio tosses it into a bag, pours some lime, and buries it among the
trees in backyard. The philosophy and contradiction behind being an animal
lover and euthanizer is addressed through Veijo’s further actions.
Veijo, cloaked in black tux and black sneakers, sees himself
as some kind of ‘Angel of Death’ for miserable pets in the area. He even
travels the local roads to find and bury the road-kills. He berates every
customer who has mistreated their animals in some way and wants to teach a
lesson or two about domesticating animals in order to serve as pets. His strong belief
in Karma makes him think that you cannot do anything you choose without facing
its consequences. Veijo locks a dog owner in his dog’s kennel and straight-out
refuses to put down a dog, whose owner he suspects is lying about the dog
biting his child. However, when the owner beleaguers Veijo, he extracts more
money and promises to put it to sleep. But Veijo simply takes in the dog as his
own pet. The dog owner is a clumsy garage mechanic and member of a racist gang,
Petri (Jari Virman). They call themselves ‘Soldiers of Finland’, but these neo-nazis
are actually pathetic, miserable and lonely. When not shooting and gassing the
animals, Veijo visits his ailing father at the hospice, where he meets young
nurse Lotta (Hannamaija Nikander). She is attracted towards Veijo’s strict
moral code. A sort of twisted romance is established between them as Lotta
likes getting choked during sex. All the unaddressed emotions and desires
implode at one moment, moving towards the inevitable, predestined show-down
between Veijo and Petri.
Those who doesn’t flinch watching humans being subjected to
violence on-screen, but bawl their eyes out when witnessing hints of on-screen
violence directed against animals should be forewarned. Although, the animal deaths are
devoid of graphic violence, it might still be perturbing for some. For the most
part, Euthanizer is an interesting, low-budget take on B-movie revenge plots
like the recent John Wick. Director Teemu Nikki doesn’t really try to revive or
reconstruct the familiar vigilante story, but he smartly breaks the
conventional rules for realizing heroes and villains. Here the hero, whom we
root for, shoots and kills both animals and humans without a second thought,
whereas the villain is just an ignorant, misled family man with a desire to
gain some respect in life. Petri stands-in for the increasing white discontent,
whose violent streak arises from the fear of dis-empowerment. Teemu is also
disdainful of Veijo’s righteously indignant moralistic attitude. Of course, we
stand-by Veijo when he delivers his personal revenge on the jackasses. But the
film is not pro-vigilantism since director Teemu sharply addresses the ironies
Veijo failed to acknowledge. The final shot is darkly humorous as well as
unsettling, reflecting Veijo’s own philosophical blind spot (or distorted moral
compass) while reiterating his Karmic belief: you can’t escape the
consequences.
Teemu Nikki is pretty much a self-taught film-maker, who has
directed, wrote, edited and co-produced the movie. So the final product
instills a sense of hand-made look which finely balances the B-movie
sensibilities and commentary on morality and anti-heroes. In this vein,
Euthanizer can serve as companion piece to the other fairly interesting revenge flicks
from this year: Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge and Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade. All
these movies take strange detours and boasts suave twists so as to transcend
the limits of grungy, old-school revenge tales. It’s all both familiar and
distinctive and adds more depth to the bleaker worldview.
Trailer
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