Very trivial story, The plot is unfortunally so predictable, that I was tempted to drop watching this movie a couple of times. Especially the last half an hour was a little bit of a torture. But my biggest issue with it is its lack of credibility! The story is so far from the Real Life that it hurts! It's too naive, too artificial. Good scenes though..

I always like watching movies based on this topic, following a boy that has experienced a big tragedy and noticing how he thinks, responds, reacts and talks with other people. It was really tough seeing parents in both families struggling to communicate and cope with their kids' problems. Those are very vulnerable ages and really hard dealing with, as for their peers, as well for the grown ups surrounding them. I'm not even closely disappointed with the movie altogether, fascinated with acting (especially the kids' acting) and the message this movie sends to every child, and also to the parents that need to cooperate and be full of understanding and patience. I also shed a few tears, especially during the breakdowns which were quite emotional. Being not that far with these kids by age, I must say the temptations always existed but it is very important to resist them, particularly if they are close to the ones in the movie. So, my vote is a 9 out of a 10.

I haven't seen a movie by Suzanne Bier for about 3 or 4 years. from what I remembered Brothers was a very good movie of a shell-shocked veteran forced to kill another for his escape. This movie is one that embarrassingly sat on my shelf for a year or so on end. I consider this unfortunate because this is actually pretty good, even if it's a completely different type of drama movie.The plot is a little difficult to explain. There are 2 kids from different backgrounds, Christian and Elias. Elias' parents are getting a divorce and his father is usually an absent doctor treating people in war zones and his mother is the same but closer to home. Christian's mother recently died of leukemia and has to move from London to a Danish town (I say this because I seriously don't know if it was brought up in the movie) and they meet and through events unfolding of these 2 children, while giving focus on their families as well talks about morality and choice.The best thing about this movie is how they handle the morality and choice. First of all, it wastes no time to show "What would happen if instead this happened" it shows what happened and that was that, and I also liked how the characters while doing morally grey things are still understandable, if not likable. I mean Christian is shown seeing what kind of effect his mother's death had on him and how he sees his father as seemingly uncaring leading him to do horrible stuff like blow up a guy's car for a minor at best incident, that and I also liked how the movie tied in that with Elias' father having to treat people just in car explosions.I really have to press on because I can talk for at least another paragraph on what this movie is doing in terms of story and doing it right. The acting is fantastic. I mean the kid that plays Christian is really good as well as Ulrich Thomsen (although his performance in Brothers is better) and Mikael Persbrandt. Everyone does good and I don't think there is a single moment that feels stiff from the actors.Other good things? Well the cinematography is quite striking and beautiful at times and each of these characters feel real. If there is any complaint is that bits and pieces do feel a bit overlong and there's a plot thread that takes up a good part of the second act of the movie and while I liked seeing where it ended, in the middle of the plot thread there were many moments where I was like "We're STILL on it?!" My point is that at the beginning I didn't feel the need of why this movie needed to focus on it until the end.I'd say that Suzanne Bier is going to be a director I will look out for in the future because I haven't seen a single movie of hers so far that wasn't a satisfactory experience. I have been drifting away from drama movies recently but I'm going to say that this movie put me back into the genre. I'd say watch it because while it does talk about morality and choice it isn't edited in a way that shows other outcomes if they did it differently but it's not brought up in the dialogue that often but even then when the parents talk about bullying and how the kids react to it is done in a way that isn't just out of nowhere. I'd say check it out.

"In a Better World," the Academy's 2011 Best Foreign Film winner, is Danish director Susanne Bier's meditation on vigilante justice. The focus is on two children, Elias and Christian, who develop anti-social tendencies due to problems going on with troubled parents at home.Elias's father, Anton, a Swedish doctor, is separated from his mother, Marianne, after she discovers he's been having an affair with another woman. Anton spends a good deal of time working as a physician in a Doctors Without Borders refugee camp in Sudan. Christian's father, Claus, has just moved the family back to Denmark from London following the death of his wife. Christian blames Claus for lying to him that his mother would get well and also accuses him of wishing that she would die in the later stages of her illness.The bulk of the plot involves Christian befriending Elias at the local school, after Elias is subject to severe bullying by classmates, particularly one Sofus, Elias's main tormentor. Christian metes out vigilante justice to Sofus, beating him with a pipe and putting a knife to his throat. Christian clearly realizes the school authorities will do nothing to stop the bullies under their charge and their impotence is reflected in Marianne's complaints to the school administrators, who she blames for doing nothing to stop the violence. Biers asks at this point, should we admire Christian for taking the law into his own hands to prevent further violence, or is his use of a knife a troubling portent of things to come?Sure enough, a second incident leads to escalating tension and violence. When Anton separates his younger son from another bullying child in a playground, the bullying child's father, a gruff car mechanic, threatens Anton, upset that Elias' father touched his son, in his effort to separate the two brawling children. Anton won't take the bait and get into a physical confrontation with the car mechanic. Christian convinces Elias that his father is a "wimp" for not physically confronting the car mechanic and in a more sinister turn, hatches a plot to blow up the car mechanic's van with a pipe bomb. Perhaps the most engaging aspect of Beer's narrative is the portrait of the more than troubled Christian, whose demeanor rivals older individuals, who engage in psychopathic behavior. Indeed, the steely Christian (played by an excellent William Jøhnk Juels Nielsen), truly comes off as a despicable and scary youngster, reminiscent of some of the sinister characters hatched in American high schools, responsible for mass killings.When Elias is hurt during the pipe bomb blast of the car mechanic's car, Christian's outlook takes an unlikely turn where he blames himself for his friend's injury, to the point where he's on the verge of suicide (it takes some quick thinking on Anton's part, to find the boy and save him).Meanwhile, back at the refugee camp, Beers argues that there are limits to pacifism. A local warlord, blamed for a slew of atrocities amongst the populace, shows up with his machine gun toting thugs, and demand that Anton treat a severe case of gangrene which has affected his leg. When the warlord claims responsibility for sexually abusing one of the women whom Anton has been treating in his make-shift hospital, Anton has had enough, drags the man outside where a mob of local villagers, beat him to death. The scene doesn't quite work as the warlord's confederates seem to shrink away and allow the angry mob to do their boss in.While Ms. Beers' nuanced exploration of vigilantism may lead one down a path of troubling cognitive dissonance for the viewer, her decision to tie the overall narrative up with an unlikely happy ending is not a good one. Indeed, I had a hard time buying that Christian would suddenly become a respectable member of the community, given the slippery slope he had already gone down. Are psychopaths so easily redeemed? I think not. And some of the other "feel-good" resolutions also felt a little too pat (Elias' miracle recovery and the reconciliation between Anton and Marianne). "In a Better World" raises troubling questions about vigilante justice and features some excellent performances, particularly from the two child protagonists. Nonetheless, director Beers' denouement unfortunately is not consistent with her earlier tale of alarming psychopathy run amok.