With the future of Hannibal beginning to look as grim as the show itself, Mads Mikkelsen fans could use a reason to laugh; the absurdity of existence has, as it often is, been reinforced by the notion that such a good show would be cancelled — and is having such a hard time finding revival options — while, say, America’s Got Talent prevails on the same network. Thus, it’s perhaps perfect timing for the release of the Men & Chicken trailer, which sees Mikkelsen immersing himself in a world that feels like the type of crazy place where Hannibal would cease to exist. (Otherwise, there is no relation whatsoever, of course.)
Men & Chicken is not, as you might guess or hope, the story of a group of bros journeying to a Boston Market, but rather, as the official description goes:
[It] revolves around two special-natured brothers, Elias and Gabriel (Mads Mikkelsen and David Dencik). Upon their father’s passing, they find out through their father’s will that they are adopted. Elias and Gabriel decide to seek out their natural father and set out for the island Ork, where their biological father lives. Here they discover a most paralyzing, yet liberating truth about themselves and their family.
From the trailer we see Mikkelsen playing one of two hair-lipped brothers who, on traveling to the aforementioned island, finds out that he has many half-brothers — all half-brothers, in fact. It turns out they all share a father, but their mothers all died in childbirth, and their father’s “wiener of death” is a thing of legend on the island. An early review on Variety called it the story of “Denmark’s most twisted family tree since Hamlet,” and, invoking yet another superlative of twistedness, said it’s “the freakiest family this side of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” But despite all that, they noted that director Anders Thomas Jensen’s “sensibility tends to skew more philosophical, layering this oddity with existential questions.”
The film will premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Watch the trailer: