Daniel Radcliffe, the Harry Potter star, joins Paul Dano in an independent film titled Swiss Army Man. The film, a product by Blackbird Films and Cold Iron Pictures, is the first feature film directed by music video duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels. Radcliffe, playing a flatulent corpse, is the titular “Swiss Army man.” Paul Dano (Hank) finds many uses for his corpse, including turning his mouth into a cannon and his gas into a fire-starter. He befriends a dead body (Radcliffe) which has washed ashore, and eventually rides it out to sea, propelled by the stream of gas emanating from the cadaver.
At the packed premiere of Swiss Army Man on Friday afternoon, movie fans, along with a few industry VIPs, walked out of the Eccles Theater. The film sparked a wildly mixed response on Twitter, with Kate Arthur, Los Angeles correspondent for Buzzfeed posting: “Inventive – but annoying, puerile, frustrating. Just no.” However, screen writer Terrell Garrett was among the more positive viewers, posting: “SWISS ARMY MAN was absurd, demented and genius. Directors are master of tone.”
Scheinart said Swiss Army Man originated with an idea of, “how a man riding a farting corpse could be a feature...about mortality and big ideas, but with fart jokes.” Speaking at the premiere, Radcliffe said: “I feel like there will be a lot of shots in the movie where people are like, “Oh, that’s obviously a dummy because Paul Dano wouldn’t have schlepped him around like that, but he did.”
