Insulting comedy film features five cleft lip brothers.

In my blogs I try to flag those cultural outputs like jokes, quotes, movies, and the like that cross the line with regard to oral facial disorders. Judge for yourself. Read this promo blurb for the dark comedy coming your way called “Men & Chickens.” 

“Sexy “Hannibal” star Mads Mikkelsen (“The Hunt,” “A Royal Affair”) plays radically against type in “Men & Chicken.” The Danish film is a riotous and zany satire that every Mikkelsen fan needs to see. Wearing a prosthetic nose and a cleft lip, Mikkelsen plays Elias, a simpleton with a small life and big issues.

The movie, written and directed by Academy Award-winner Anders Thomas Jensen (“Election Night,” “The New Tenants”), made its North American premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Fri., Sept 11, 2015.

Mikkelsen told the press, “Even before I read the script I knew not to expect anything “normal” from Anders Thomas Jensen. It’s difficult to describe; he redraws boundaries but makes the unimaginable conceivable.”

Elias (Mikkelsen) and his smarter brother Gabriel (David Dencik) have come together after their father’s death. Dad left them a shocker of a videotaped message. The poorly aimed camera shows only their father’s feet as you hear his voice announcing they were not his biological children and that they don’t have the same mother.

The trauma sends them on a search to find their biological dad. When Elias and Gabriel arrive at the sparsely-populated island where their scientist father lives, they are met, literally, with more disturbing secrets; three more brothers from different mothers, all with a harelip, come barreling out of their father’s home, a dilapidated former sanitarium.

The five brothers don’t look much alike but it’s easy to tell they’re related. Aside from their lip deformity, each brother possesses bizarre personality traits, including a fondness for chicken, cheese, taxidermy, and badminton.

“Men & Chicken” is already a smash hit in its native country Denmark and it is obvious that Jensen and the actors enjoyed the heck out of this script. How could they not? The roles are scrumptious and the humor, perfection.

In Danish with English subtitles. Not rated. 104 min. Drafthouse Films purchased the North American distribution rights. To find out when and where you can see this delightful oddball of a movie stay tuned on the “Men & Chicken” website or Facebook page.

 

It’s not just the unlikely cleft lip quints that push the envelope, it’s the crazy and deviant behavior attributed to them that’s offensive to this real-life cleft.

Synopsis of cleft lip comedy.

Wiki has a more sanitized summary of the plot:

“Two brothers, who are informed at the deathbed of their father that they both are adopted, discover that their real father is Evelio Thanatos, a geneticist specialized in stem cell research. To know about their mother and to meet their biological father, the brothers Gabriel and Elias go to the Island of Ork. They find out they have three other half-brothers Franz, Josef and Gregor. Both Gabriel and Elias are welcomed with a beating but later the brothers get along.

Soon, Gabriel and Elias finds out that their father is dead and the other brothers have kept it as a secret. Gabriel contacts the Mayor of the Island, Flemming and makes arrangements for a proper burial. Gabriel who is a University professor picks up the way of life and poor social skills of his brothers and tries to alter the lifestyle. After a series of unsuccessful efforts he takes off from the house leaving Elias behind.

While Gabriel was out the four brothers go out to find women and jobs, but ends up in a mishaps. Later Gabriel notices strange animals around the island and remembers other animals he have seen in the house and goes back to the house. At the house Gabriel opens a secret hatch which he had intended to see since his arrival. He finds preserved fetus’ of many cross-species farm animals and sees experimentation done on humans using stem cell. The brothers come to the realization from the research notes that each of them are genetically part animal and their mothers were the subjected to these unethical experiments which resulted in their death.

In the end the five brothers stay together in the house with children and family, though the fact is revealed they all are sterile.”

 

 

 

 

My latest book, PRIVILEGED KILLERS, is a true story about a half-dozen Dark Triad people in my everyday life - narcissists, manipulators, and psychopaths. Three of 'em murdered people, and one came after my wife and me. Print and e-book versions of this (and CLEFT HEART) available at Amazon and elsewhere online. Also at your local bookstore.