It is a “privilege” for filmmaker Anders Ølholm to helm Amazon MGM Studios’s first Danish original series, “Snake Killer,” released today on Prime Video. The four-episode crime thriller is inspired by real-life events and follows the work of Denmark’s notorious Uropatruljen, a police unit active between 1965 and 2001 and dedicated to curbing drug dealers and gangs in the sprawling capital of Copenhagen. “Snake Killer” stars Pilou Asbæk (“Game of Thrones”) as contentious officer Brian “Smiley” Petersen, with a large ensemble cast featuring Lars Ranthe (“Another Round”), Mira Obling (“Dark Horse”), Joey Moe (“Fugleflugten”) and Ali Al-Bayate (“Sommerdahl”).
Ølholm was already well familiar with the world of the Danish police force, having directed 2020’s “Shorta.” Co-directed by Frederik Louis Hviid, the thriller follows two officers who find themselves trapped in a fictional Copenhagen neighborhood once news breaks that a young foreigner died while in police custody. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and received a successful festival run afterwards, eventually being picked up by Magnolia Pictures for North America.
“Snake Killer,” however, was another challenge entirely. Speaking with Variety ahead of the show’s release, the director says there was “not much known” about the infamous Uropatruljen. “I’ve always wanted to pierce this hermetically sealed world to try and write a project, but I didn’t have a way in.”
When former Uropatruljen officer René Dahl Andersen contacted Ølholm’s production company to say he was interested in working on a project about his time in the unit, it felt like fate. “It seemed too good to be true at first,” says the helmer. “But we met, and he was a very jovial, outgoing guy, with these incredible stories. Eventually, I began meeting some of his old colleagues and informants, as well as walking his old stomping grounds. Slowly but surely, it dawned on me that he was the real deal and my entryway into that world.”
At the time the two first met, Dahl Andersen was working on the book that would eventually become “Hærdet” (“Hardened” in literal translation). The Danish bestseller gathers the former copper’s stories of his time roaming the Copenhagen streets, and has also helped inform the show. “What hooked me was the idea that, if you want to succeed in that environment, you have to be very outgoing and have a lot of social intelligence and empathy,” adds Ølholm.
“This particular unit has been painted almost as neanderthals, and I realized it was much more nuanced and there was a very complex human aspect to it,” he says. Eventually, Dahl Andersen got former colleagues involved in the project, with several past Uropatruljen officers playing versions of themselves in the show alongside former drug dealers and minor criminals, a fact the creator credits with boosting the “authenticity” of “Snake Killer.”
“Snake Killer” courtesy of Prime Video
It took six years for Ølholm to get the project off the ground. Commenting on being the first-ever Amazon original series in Denmark, the director says working with the major streamer was a “godsend.” “I had a lot of doors closed on me and was almost prepared to move on when I heard Amazon was potentially interested in doing projects in Denmark. I pitched them and was completely stumped at their immediate positive reaction.”
“Working with Amazon felt like a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he goes on. “I had heard horror stories about working with major streamers in terms of creative control, but that was not my experience whatsoever. I was prepared to have to tone down some elements, but from the very beginning, they just really understood the project and let me make the project I wanted to make.”
Did working with a global player, and therefore aiming for international audiences, change the series in any way? Ølholm says it only reinforced his desire to blend Danish social realism with American genre films, especially classic cop killers like “Serpico,” “The French Connection” and “Training Day.” “I wanted to drink from that fountain while being rooted in Danish culture and specifically this neighborhood in Copenhagen. We shot in real-life locations, in a real police station and a real motel, so the show is very grounded in our culture and reality, but made with familiar mechanisms from the classic American cop cinema.”
Another element that secured the making of “Snake Killer” was star Asbæk, a long-time friend of Ølholm’s. “He is one of the very few actors in Denmark who can actually get a project greenlit,” emphasizes the director. “He has played very diverse characters in America and internationally, but in terms of Danish fiction, he is more known for his empathetic, soft public persona. I think he was intrigued to play a character that is so far removed from who he is as a person. Once I got him on board, he was an extraordinary resource. He is really there with you and the other actors, and without a name like his, we wouldn’t have been able to make the project.”
With all four episodes dropping at once on Prime Video, are there already future plans for the series? Not yet, says its creator. “At one point, the show was nine episodes long. Just by that alone, I have a lot of material I want to pursue. But I got to make the show I wanted to make. If there is more, great, but if it doesn’t happen, I am just so happy to have gotten the opportunity to make the first season.”
Following the release of “Snake Killer,” Ølholm is gearing up to shoot another long-brewing passion project, a feature film called “The Plan,” based on the eponymous Danish best-seller by Morten Pape. The director says the film is “‘Do The Right Thing’ meets ‘This is England.’” “It tells the story of a young boy who grows up in a very well-known housing complex called Finger Plan, but that goes by The Plan. It’s exciting to do something that is not as genre-heavy as what I’ve done before,” he adds.