Peter Bradshaw 

Evil

Peter Bradshaw: Broodingly handsome youngster Erik, is packed off to a brutal boarding establishment in 1950s Sweden, where sadistic punishments are meted out by arrogant upper-school boys and the masters are mostly boors, bores and crypto-Nazis.
  
  


Cast your mind back to the classic Tomkinson's Schooldays episode from Michael Palin's Ripping Yarns. Now imagine a completely humourless Scandinavian remake with lashings of gloatingly explicit violence. Broodingly handsome youngster Erik (Andreas Wilson), is packed off to a brutal boarding establishment in 1950s Sweden, where sadistic punishments are meted out by arrogant upper-school boys and the masters are mostly boors, bores and crypto-Nazis. Our Erik has to endure all sorts of pain and humiliation before deciding to give these bullies a lesson. It's utterly without the insight or shrewdness of Lindsay Anderson's If ..., and the solemn anti-bullying message is undermined by its lip-smacking enthusiasm for face-smashing punch-ups.

 

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