Norwegian writer/director Bent Hamer is famous for his quirky humor in films like KITCHEN STORIES and FACTOTUM. 

This time around, Hamer finds his humor in the study of recent train driver retiree Horten (Bard Owe) and his ability or rather inability to adjust to his new lifestyle.  Unfortunately, this character holds little interest nor do the situations concocted by Hamer.  The ‘choo-choo’ cheering at Horten’s farewell party fails to achieve any sympathy or humor to the proceedings and the Norwegian wintry landscape (there are repeated shots of the train traveling out of the tunnel into he vast whiteness) seem to underline the film’s emptiness.

O’HORTEN is dead pan unfunny sub-Kaurismaki and sub-Hamer fare