True love seldom runs smoothly, especially in Denmark. Just ask Hamlet. And in Nicolo Donato's discerning Brotherhood, an exploration of the rebirth of the Danish National Socialist Movement, romance has an especially difficult path to tread.

The film begins late at night by a water tower. A gent in a hoodie is wooing a young homosexual man, who quickly discovers, when his pants are down, that he's been set up to be brutally attacked by a group of neo-Nazi thugs.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, blond Lars (Thure Lindhardt) learns he's not receiving his expected military promotion. Apparently, a man in his platoon has accused Lars of making passes at one or two of his subordinates. Lars, disgusted by the accusation, quits and goes back home, only to wind up being nagged by his upper-middle class parents to return to the service. No way!

To get some peace of mind, Lars hangs out with his anti-Muslim slacker friends one night, and is surprised to learn that two Neo-Nazis -- Fatty (Nicolas Bro) and his right-hand brute, Jimmy (David Dancik) -- are visiting to recruit new members. Disgusted, Lars gets up to leave, but not because he's pro-immigrant. He isn't. He just doesn't believe in the men's tactics: "I’m not some psycho or a loser who beats up people."

Skinhead Jimmy cordially responds, "Why don’t you just suck some Paki ass?"

Of course, within twenty minutes of film time, Lars has joined the organization, plus shacked up with Jimmy, and this duo of misfits have become lovers. The neo-Nazi part does not make Lars' mom happy: "You’re just a bully boy. There's not an ounce of man in you." And if that's ma’s reaction, what will Fatty and his crew say and do if they ever discover that a pair of gays has infiltrated their organization? Somebody's going to be beaten up very, very badly.

So what choice do Lars and Jimmy have? A nice cottage in Finland or just remain closeted and hope for the best? Jimmy is the more conflicted: "This is my life, my family, my friends." He also has a giant swastika tattooed on his back, which sort of limits where he can go shirtless.

Convincing to a degree and highly well-acted, Brotherhood incisively mirrors the growing chaos many European countries are confronting today as their immigration populations increase and their economies fizzle. The disenchanted, without any viewable options and often with little education and few skills, will seek the easy way out of their stressful situations. "Let’s go bash some minorities."

And who knows, the Danish Prince didn't feel much better about life either: "How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world." Perhaps, under the right circumstances, with something rather rotten in Denmark, the despondent Hamlet might just have started goose-stepping about and shouting "Heil!" too. - Brandon Judell

Mr. Judell is featured in the forthcoming documentary Activist: The Times of Vito Russo and has been edited out of Rosa von Praunheim's New York Memories. In the fall, he'll be teaching "American Jewish Theater" and "Theater into Film" at The City College of New York. He has written on film for The Village Voice, indieWire.com, The New York Daily News, and The Advocate, and is anthologized in Cynthia Fuchs's Spike Lee Interviews (University Press of Mississippi).