The Kingdom: Viewer Comments

A crumbling old city hospital in Copenhagen has problems enough with backbiting office politics, but then ghosts from a terrible crime in the hospital's past rise up to scare the dickens out of everybody. This thing is compiled from the first four episodes of a Danish TV miniseries and runs over 4 hours -- and you won't want to miss a second of it. It has some great ghost-movie moments in it, but at its heart, this is a biting, cynical comedy with a cast of absolutely terrific characters. There's a hypochondriac old lady who is hunting the ghosts, the chief neurosurgeon is so anal he must have a real Black Hole up his butt, the pathologist is mad as a hatter, the director is a manipulative moron, and the only people who have a clue as to what's happening are the two Downs Syndrome kids who do the dishes. It's like a hospital soap opera with ghosts, elective organ transplants, & blackmail -- occasionally spooky & frequently hilarious. Much of the camerawork is handheld; it's distracting at first but adds to the intimate feel -- all around, the production & cast are first rate. The worst part is that after four hours, we get a badass cliffhanger. Good thing there's a Kingdom 2 out there somewhere...