Heavy Trip, written –with two others – and directed by Juuso Laatio and Jukka Vidgren - 8.5 out of 10

Heavy Trip, written –with two others – and directed by Juuso Laatio and Jukka Vidgren

8.5 out of 10

A very amusing, enjoyable Finnish film has Turo Moilanen aka Johannes Holopainen in the role of the hero, the member of Heavy Metal band, hence the Heavy Trip name.

They benefit from the mockery of the locals, given that although they live in the Northern part of Europe, supposedly the most advanced, civilized Scandinavia, this is a small town.

The local head of police is a retrograde, would be Trump voter if he lived in the USA, and he is aghast at the prospect of his daughter, Miia, who works in a flower shop, getting close to the enemy aka Turo.

He works in an institution where he has to clean the floors, but he is using the mop to practice his stage moves and finds himself in front of an audience of patients.

After this, one of the nurses informs him that one of the men has soiled himself, again, and therefore he has to get in there and change the man who is happy for this…

It is better to shit yourself, than be constipated …this is more or less the wisdom he shares with the others

Miia is also courted by a rather despicable individual, the antihero of the film, Jouni Tulkku, the man that the father of the girl prefers infinitely more than Turo.

When the latter is on his bicycle in the town, groups of rednecks shout at him and insult the man with a very long hair – they all have long hair, as is de riguer for metalists:

You better cut your hair, you pussy…words to that effect

Jouni Tulkku is amiable to Turo, but only in front of the woman he wants to sleep with – as he declares in a Trump like manner, as soon as he is alone with his rival.

In private, or whenever he is not in front of Miia, the antihero is more than abusive, he is a homophobe, limited, stupid supremacist in the vein of the Trump supporters, to use this same comparing group.

Jouni only does one good thing, in his unending emission of insults, he is the one who finds the name for the Heavy Metal –antichrist as they declare it – group, albeit involuntarily:

Impaled Rektum

This nefarious character calls people names, he takes the group on stage, only to gain points with Miia, but he would finally end the relationship, when she finds him having coitus with a mature woman.

Meanwhile, the hero suffers from a phobia; he has a sort of nervous breakdown, or almost melts down when he has to perform in front of an audience:

He vomits on the members of the public that are unlucky enough to stand in the front row.

And this is in the manner of the very large Terry Jones, having a huge meal in a Monty Python film, or the David Walliams personage in the Little Britain series.

There are plenty of good moments in this original comedy, although some could be a bit outré.

A foreigner, with a rather large, almost a Panama hat, arrives at the reindeer slaughter house, where the father of one of the band members fears he is an EU inspector

He does look like he comes from another continent, or maybe another movie and he declares he wants some reindeer blood, for which they reach an agreement.

Nonetheless, when the blood is moved around in one of the barrels that are used for the purpose, the visitor is talking to the locals at the lower level of the building.

Where he receives the full amount of a barrel’s worth of reindeer blood on his face, body and clothes.

Another amusing scene, using the same poor reindeer has the man who fears for his business, the slaughterhouse for reindeer:

With your heavy metal music, I will be out of business, because the reindeer will just die! Or was it that they would commit suicide?