Black Crab, review of the new post-apocalyptic thriller on Netflix
Black Crab
Would you ever think of ice skating as a weapon for the success of a mission with the aim of winning a war? If the answer is no, you should change your mind, because among the news of March on the Netflix streaming platform you can find Black Crab, a Swedish post-apocalyptic thriller with dramatic and dark tones. Directed by Adam Berg and with a deserving cast, in which we find Noomi Rapace as the protagonist, whom you will surely remember in Ridley Scott's film Prometheus, Black Crab wants to turn the viewer's attention to issues of war, resistance, determination and related emotions that push soldiers to go on missions.Black Crab
Skating, war and parental love
A group of six soldiers is called on a mission called the Black Crab, to carry a mysterious load of which they have no information, but which will be used to win the war in a Swedish post-apocalyptic scenario: the protagonist sees herself removed from her daughter, of whom she will lose track and, after being called up, will fight in the low climatic temperatures and the persistent bombardments of the enemies together with his group of soldiers to carry the load for over 200 nautical miles, traveled with ice skates on their feet.Black Crab In almost 2 hours of duration, our soldiers, including our protagonist Carolin Edh (Noomi Rapace), will have to cross dangerous icy stretches, resist the physical and aerial attacks of the enemies and face moral doubts who will test their emotions, to be able to earn the glory of the mission and win a war of which they know almost no information. Will the protagonist be able to find her lost daughter and complete the Black Crab mission?
Dark, dramatic and cold atmospheres
Black Crab looks like a classic post-apocalyptic war film with dark, violent and raw scenarios: in fact the film is not suitable for watching a public under 14 for the presence of bloody and violent scenes without any censorship. The cold atmosphere, also given by the locations in which the scenes are shot, is made even more dramatic by the soundtracks, the color and the excellent photography that, scene after scene, is crazy and very emotional, a choice that tries to empathize the spectator in the dramas of the events narrated.Black Crab The writing is relatively simple and offers a quite fluctuating rhythm that tries to keep the viewer's attention high even if, as regards the plot, perhaps it falls too much on the banal, especially towards the end of the film, as if the pathos lost some importance. Black Crab also offers a couple of twists that, however, are overshadowed, preferring to shift the focus only and exclusively on the success of the mission, sacrificing some fundamental detail that for the duration of the film is never explored. , but on which it probably would have been better to focus in order not to leave the viewer with unresolved questions.
As regards the performance of the actors, however, we were particularly impressed: the difficulties faced by the group of soldiers, especially those of the protagonist, make it really good, leading the viewer to "cheer" for characters. Excellent, however, is the contrast between the present, represented as a bitter truth, and flashbacks of the past, shown in the protagonist's dreams as if they were sweet memories of when her only mission was to take care of her daughter, now missing. All in all, however, Black Crab is a product that lets itself be looked at but which, in its entirety, could have offered more details to get a more complete picture of the situation, in fact both the characters and the viewer remain completely unaware of the facts in many situations.
A war against… nobody
This detail, never provided, makes the result of the product take a turn of banality which, perhaps, has focused too much on the emotions and morality of the group of soldiers, leaving out however a fundamental detail of the plot. Perhaps, the purpose of Black Crab was to open the eyes of the viewer by showing how, often, the soldiers sent into battle are unaware of the "end that justifies the means", a reflection that makes the soldiers like a subspecies of puppets in the hands of strong powers, who are given a reward in the form of a medal in the event that the mission, or the war itself, is won. But unfortunately, the absence of this detail in the film badly drops the justification of the mission, omitting facts that would have made the product compelling. | mission, ready to sacrifice everything and everyone, without looking anyone in the face but, as mentioned a little earlier, without even knowing the purpose behind the actions to be performed.
