Mifune

This Danish entry from director Søren Kragh-Jacobsen has a routine storyline, but it is stylish and offbeat enough to remain entertaining. Anders W. Berthelsen stars as Kresten, a yuppie whose marriage to his boss' daughter faces a snag. The father he denied having just died, and he has to leave his honeymoon to take care of his insane brother, Rud (Jesper Asholt). To make his task easier, he hires a weary young prostitute (Iben Hjejle, High Fidelity) to keep the rotting country house in order. Mifune often plays like an arty, European Rain Man, but Kragh-Jacobsen treats the material with a quirky humor that keeps it from getting maudlin. In many ways, the movie is helped by the unusual constraints set about by its conformity to the rules of Dogma 95, the Danish-led filmmaking cooperative that has been responsible for such projects as The Celebration. All the cameras are handheld and the only music is played on set, giving the movie spontaneity it might not have otherwise. Mifune's outcome is set in stone, but the film's lively approach keeps it from being inanimate. (R) Rating: 7