As The Sound of Noise begins, we meet the unfortunately named police detective Amadeus Warnebring, a tone-deaf black sheep in a family full of celebrated musical virtuosos. We learn that the Warnebring’s metronome was at least as big a part of the family as Amadeus, probably more so. Now an adult, Amadeus is so tired of being pitied for his lack of talent that he despises music and anyone who plays it.

Next we meet Sanna and Magnus, speeding down the freeway in a cargo van, Magnus pounding away at a drum set in the back, Sanna accompanying him with the sound of the van’s shifting gears.

Their paths first cross when Amadeus is called in to investigate an ominous ticking coming from the van, which Sanna and Magnus were forced to abandon to escape the police chase brought on by their egregious disregard of the speed limit.

The gathered crowd stares in horror as Amadeus fearlessly approaches the ticking van. As he plucks out a metronome and holds it up for all to see, he is met with cries of “it could have been a bomb!” and “you could have died!” The detective shakes his head and says, “I know that kind of ticking far too well.”

From then on, the paths of Amadeus, Sanna, and Magnus are destined to intertwine. The musical rebels go about planning their magnum opus, which involves Sanna, Magnus, and four of Sweden’s most talented and disgruntled drummers breaking into construction sites, banks and hospitals to perform concerts with bulldozers, the sound of cash put through a shredder, or an anesthetized human body. “I want it to be really clear that some things will be illegal,” Sanna warns the new recruits, “some will be dangerous, but...it’ll be one hell of a work of art.”

Amadeus’ crime-solving acumen combined with his intimate knowledge and hatred of music, make him the only person able to intercept and foil the plans of the merry musical pranksters. But as the film propels its characters towards an inescapable final confrontation, it becomes increasingly unclear who will win and who will lose if the sonic rebels are allowed to finish their masterpiece.
- Lela Scott MacNeil