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Black Crab sees Caroline Edh (Noomi Rapace – Rupture, What Happened To Monday), and daughter Vanja, driving through a highway tunnel, then having stopped for the queue, before out of the blue, they hear gunshots and explosions, causing everyone in the vehicles ahead to run in the opposite direction past her, and even with people getting shot right before their eyes.
After mother and daughter are separated, and when we next see Caroline, she’s now patrolling an area with an automatic rifle, and it’s one of those horrendous situations where everyone’s living in camps now that society has completely broken down. So, what led to her getting from one situation to a whole new world?
Well, it’s all very nondescript as to what caused the about-turn of life.
Everyone is now living in a post-apocalyptic world where tower blocks have their entire middle section shot out. Basically, it’s like Putin having invaded Ukraine, and the residents having had to learn to fight with weapons. To see this in a film is more than enough, and for it having happened in real life is just obscene.
But for the population within this movie, the advice is always to head South.
For Caroline, she has a new mission: Operation Black Crab tasks her and a crew of a handful of individuals to transport two capsules across a patch of ice, which is too thin for vehicles to drive on, and too thick for a boat to push through it. They must get to the research facility in Odö, “like a crab in the dark“, as it’s 100 nautical miles through the dark, behind enemy lines. If they succeed, they can win the war and, ultimately, they are free to leave the army.
Apart from the fact that everyone in the world could be dead if they don’t get from A to B, there’s another reason for our heroine to take part: several years have passed since she saw her daughter, and they’ll be reunited if she takes this journey, since she is at Odö.
A lot of people would be curious as to what they’re carrying, but the cargo must remain a secret. However, Caroline has a number of dreams that she’s back with Vanja, and she can’t wait to see her again so, naturally, she’ll do what it takes for the mission to succeed.
There isn’t really a huge amount of originality to Black Crab, although that’s not what it’s trying to do. It’s basically a road movie (across ice), where the crew will face endless problems on their trip, and like all disaster movies, you get the feeling that not everyone will make it.
I also love ‘end of the world’-style films, and it certainly delivers on that premise, but while it’s a good film, it does rather go on at almost two hours in length, and could easily lose about 20 minutes.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
Black Crab is on Netflix from Friday March 18th, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 110 minutes
Release date: March 18th 2022
Studio: Netflix
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Score: 7/10
Director: Adam Berg
Producers: Malin Idevall, Mattias Montero
Screenplay: Adam Berg, Pelle Rådström
Novel: Jerker Virdborg
Music: Dead People
Cast:
Caroline Edh: Noomi Rapace
Nylund: Jakob Oftebro
Malik: Dar Salim
Granvik: Erik Enge
Karimi: Ardalan Esmaili
Forsberg: Aliette Opheim
Vanja: Stella Marcimain Klintberg
Admiral Noroh: Susan Taslimi
Colonel Raad: David Dencik
Deidre: Nora Rios
Old man: Peter Edding
Old woman: Gunilla Abrahamsson
Officer: Joachim Sallquist
Head Centry: Ilir Latifi
Female Robber: Cecilia Säverman
Young Soldier: Mikail Akalin
Nurse: Matar Samba
Male Researcher: Robin Keller
Female Researcher: Sanna Krepper
Armed Guard: Martin Miiro
Soldiers: Marcel Khouri, Mostafa Alshawi, Emanuel Warnhjalm, Martin Hendrikse
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.