An antiseptic, unemotional police procedural (1997, 96 min.) set in northern Norway, where an ace Swedish police sleuth (Stellan Skarsgard) turns up to investigate the murder of a 17-year-old girl and (surprise, surprise) winds up demonstrating he’s fairly screwed up himself. The style of director and cowriter Erik Skjoldbjaerg in this first feature is clipped and crisp, and much is made of the action’s transpiring inside the arctic circle during the season when there’s no night, but I had a much easier time nodding off than the hero. It’s nice to see a genre film from abroad for a change, but I would have preferred one with an interesting character or two, not to mention a livelier plot. In Norwegian with subtitles. (JR)