Critic Reviews

It’s a twisted existential grotesque that wrings thought-provoking pathos and even affection for the lunatics running the menagerie, no mean feat.

It’s Mikkelsen who steals the show playing so far against type that you wonder how it could be him.

The joy of Men & Chicken is the way the absurdist comedy can dissolve to expose some intriguing philosophical arguments.

Hilarious in places, hideous in others, this struggles to make its philosophical case. But the performances are exceptional and the conceit could not be more daring or distinctive.

Combining elements of slapstick, horror, and psychodrama (not to mention Darwinism, bestiality, and harelips), Men & Chicken is a film – nay, a world – into which you just dive, and unlike most of the stuff out there, from one moment to the next, you have no idea what is going to happen. It is a black comedy that nimbly switches tones so often it can feel like whiplash.

What does all of this add up to? Damned if I know. But it's fun to see a film that plays by its own rules to such a degree that any comparison to anything else falls apart.

Even given the standards of off-the-rails cinematic family reunions, you'd have to look a while to find one as bizarre as Anders Thomas Jensen's Men & Chicken.

In its own playful way, this tonally astounding, genre-confounding movie offers a variation on the famous chicken-and-egg debate, being a twisted inquiry into the characters’ origins and mankind’s own search for meaning.

In Jensen's uniquely wacky world, there's a genuine affection for his offbeat characters.

An admirably bizarre and beautiful genre mixtape, but Anders Thomas Jensen's empathy for his characters gradually impedes his imagination.