At the start of the seventies oil is discovered in the North Sea. Norway had difficulty in getting this oil to land and had to do several test dives in order to find out if it was possible to lay a pipe. If they were able to do this it would mean a lot of money for the country. As tests at this depth were never done before, the Norwegians decided to work together with an American company. The Norwegian brothers Petter and Knut are part of the diving team and are the first ones to do a test dive. When a tragic accident takes place at the ocean floor it is Petter who decided to find the cause for it. It is an investigation which becomes more dangerous to him when he seems to discover a conspiracy.
Aksel Hennie is very good in his role Petter and strikes a good balance between showing the obsession of the character and the paranoia he is experiencing as well. Director Erik Skjoldbjærg (who was responsible for the original Insomnia) makes the scenes set under water stand out in an exquisite way, showing both the beauty and the danger of this pioneering work. Unfortunately he doesn’t succeed to maintain the suspense throughout the movie because of some weaker parts of the script. The movie supposedly is based on actual events, but as the movie starts to get more extreme you start to doubt that claim.
I’ve written before about the fact that “based on a true story” is something which to me doesn’t add anything to a movie and in this case it actually takes away from the film. I can’t imagine that in the actual case there were exploding speedboats, limping assassins and other similar things. The ending of the movie left me with unanswered questions. Despite that criticism Pioneer is worth watching for its atmosphere and the under water shots.
