1727. Behind Schedule (1993)

Starring: Jean-Philippe Labadie, Hjálmar Hjálmarsson, Elva Ósk Ólafsdóttir

Director: Gísli Snær Erlingsson

Running Time: 90 mins

Behind Schedule (Stuttur frakki) is an Icelandic film about a French music agent who travels to Iceland to sign a new hit band at a local concert, but gets lost along the way in a series of mishaps.

This is a nice little film. Although I can’t say it’s the most side-splittlingly hilarious comedy you’ll ever see, it’s a quirky movie with a good sense of humour throughout, a fun story, and some decent performances, all of which play out to a light-hearted and pleasant pace that make for a really nice watch.

The best thing about this film is definitely its sense of humour. Again, it’s not a film that will make you bust a gut laughing, but its quirkiness coupled with some brilliant self-deprecating Icelandic humour means you’ll definitely be having fun throughout.

On the one hand, it makes great fun of tourists completely none the wiser to a foreign country, but the best thing about the comedy is how it shows the Icelandic people as a group of crazy and isolated runabouts, all creating a series of bizarre but entertaining situations for the Frenchman to bump into, making him more and more frustrated with the country.

Along with the humour, the story here is a good bit of fun. It’s by no means a riveting or particularly investing plot, but when coupled with the quirky humour, watching a Frenchman bumble around southwest Iceland while the Icelanders themselves get into all sorts of bother while organising their concert is pretty enjoyable.

At times, the film does inject a degree of sweet drama into proceedings, and although it’s nice at first, it’s never quite convincing enough to be that interesting, but it fortunately doesn’t take away from the entertaining main part of the story.

Finally, the performances here aren’t all that bad either. Jean-Philippe Labadie is very entertaining in the lead role, and gets you right on side to get completely lost with him, whilst supporting turns from Elva Ósk Ólafsdóttir and Hjálmar Hjálmarsson are good fun to watch too, bringing that quirkiness to the Icelandic side of the story very well.

Overall, I had fun with Behind Schedule. It’s not an exceptionally hilarious film, nor is it the most riveting, but it’s a short, pleasant and quirky little movie that’ll have you smiling throughout and enjoying some bizarre sightseeing and strange encounters along the way, and that’s why I’m giving it a 7.2.