The Crusader – Arn: Knights Templar (2007)

Directed by: Peter Flinth | 139 minutes | action, drama, adventure | Actors: Joakim Nätterqvist, Sofia Helin, Stellan Skarsgård, Milind Soman, Simon Callow, Vincent Perez, Bibi Andersson, Michael Nyqvist, Jakob Cedergren

Arn Magnusson grows up as a boy in a monastery. One of the brothers, who fought in the Holy Land, teaches him sword fighting. In the years that follow, he becomes more and more agile and also learns to read. One day he is allowed to leave the monastery and go out into the wide world. Back with his family, he is immediately drawn into a feud that is the seeds of a struggle for the throne and control of a country that will one day be called Sweden. Because of this haggling, Magnusson starts a secret and forbidden love affair that will break him sour. He and his lover are exiled for twenty years. He has to end his exile in the monastery. However, the monks send him to Jerusalem as a knight of the temple. His great love Cecilia ends up among the nuns who keep her under their thumb with a strict hand.

The print ‘The Crusader’ (‘Arn, Tempelriddaren’) is based on the books of the Swedish writer Jan Guillou. His trilogy about the crusader is soaring all over Scandinavia. But Magnusson’s adventures have already been translated into other countries. The sequel to pellicule therefore seems no more than a logical choice. In any case, the makers have done their best, because this is the most expensive Swedish project ever. The epic is strongly reminiscent of ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ and is certainly not inferior in terms of bombast or pathos. The battles are powerful, the intrigue exciting and the actors top notch. It can’t be otherwise with names like Stellan Skarsgård and Michael Nyqvist (‘Millenium’). But it is mainly Joakim Nättervist who impresses as the main character and comes across as a much more convincing knight than Hollywood star Orlando Bloom. The vicissitudes surrounding the throne are not always transparent, but let that be a detail in this entertaining film. The swords clatter and the action is heroic. Sometimes it shouldn’t be more.