A Finnish gangster movie? Something doesn’t quite sound right about that. Titled ‘Hellsinki’ for the international audience, the Finnish capital is not generally known for its violent criminal underworld and gangland assassinations. But in the mid-1960s, Rööperi – a particularly deprived area of the city – was. Indeed, as one of the characters puts it in the film, you know you’ve wandered into Rööperi when you’ve already been robbed.
It’s difficult to know quite what to expect from a Finnish gangland movie, but right from the beginning you realise that this is not going to be some silly Finnish attempt to imitate a blockbuster about Los Angeles street wars. The director immediately creates a sinister and un-nerving atmosphere as we see a drunk, drug-addict picked-up by gang members and driven, confused, to the coast outside the city. He owes them money, he owes them a lot of money and the way in which he recalls, regrets and pathetically begs for his life is portrayed not dramatically . . . just very poignantly.
Poignancy pervades this film and its brutal violence is pictured in a gritty, realistic way. It is 1966, and a number of criminal gangs are competing to control Helsinki’s elicit alcohol trade. Though violent – and prepared to seriously injure and kill their rivals – they are small-scale in terms of the money they make and the central character – Tomppa (Samuli Edelman) – is unable to make enough to get him and his mother out of their cramped flat. Tomppa and his gang manage by brute-force – because the rival gang-leader is in prison – to take-over the Rööperi area of Helsinki. But crisis ensues when Finland liberalises its alcohol laws – allowing people to buy beer and cider from supermarkets – meaning there is far less of a demand for their illegal alcohol. They all begin to realise that Sweden – and then hard drugs – are where the real money is to be made.
Though there are bloody scenes, Rööperi is about so much more. All of the characters have to struggle. When his friends decamp to Sweden, Tomppa struggles as hard as he can to keep his ungrateful wife happy and to become an honest businessman by opening up his ‘Emperor of Sex’ sex-shop. He struggles with the lure of alcohol, struggles to get out of poverty, struggles as friends and family die and struggles with the new generation of young gangsters who appear to have no scruples of any kind, to the extent that a corrupt Helsinki policeman resigns because he can’t cope with these new, hardened criminals.
The other main characters also have to struggle. Krisu, a complete failure at 40 with a daughter he never sees, struggles with a drug-addiction and his inability to ever get it right. The childlike Kari so struggles with life that after his mother dies he does everything he can to get into and stay in prison. ‘This is my home’ he tells Tomppa, smiling broadly, after he engineers an armed robbery and only agrees not to shoot people if the police guarantee him at least five years inside without any chance of parole.
Rööperi is one of those films that builds to an intense climax, so I don’t wan t to give too much away. It would be so easy for a film like this to portray shooting and people’s heads being blown-off in every scene. But all of the violence is justified and none of the main characters are one-dimensional. Despite being life-long criminals, they all have a heart and look after each other. Tomppa does all that’s within his power to save the life of his friend Krisu who has slipped into drug addiction, Kari dearly wants to help as well – in his own naïve way – asking Tomppa, ‘Would it help if I beat him up?’ Tomppa also refuses to sell alcohol to a customer at Christmas when he enters his flat and sees his wife and kids cowering in the next room, clearly having been beaten-up. Krisu himself – as his very last act – tracks down his daughter’s flat and gives her everything that he has without ever quite revealing to her exactly who is. Rööperi contains many moving – as well as shocking – moments.
This is helped by the quality of the acting, at least with the central characters. Kari Hietalahti (Kari) won a particularly difficult role in having to portray a trigger-happy thug who is also comically naïve. To play an essentially comic-relief character in a film like this and still keep the movie convincing could not have been easy but Hietalahti somehow manages it. Lead character Tomppa is also compellingly portrayed. Effectively the hero of the film, you really find yourself emotionally attached to him. And the same is true of the tragic Krisu as portrayed by Peter Franzen. He redeems himself in his very last act and it is brought to life with great sensitivity.
There is just enough character development to allow us to ‘understand’ each of the main characters, including a horrific childhood flashback in one case. However, the side-characters were – perhaps – the one thing that let the movie down. We don’t find out much about them, there doesn’t seem to be much too them and they are effectively criminal stereotypes. The youthful, baby-faced leader of the rival gang is a particularly unpersuasive character. It may be that he wasn’t well-acted but I don’t think that the actor portraying him would have had that much to go with. How do you convincingly play a foppish, slightly effeminate gang-leader in such a way that he appears genuinely hard and frightening?
But overall, Rööperi is yet another Finnish movie triumph. It has comedy, tragedy, a scintillating plot and fascinating and moving characters. It is certainly worth-watching and is so much more than ‘just a gangster movie.’
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Rööperi. 2009. Directed by Aleksi Mäkelä.
