Every turn towards the bizarre and amusingly complicated gives away director and star Fares Fares‘ intentions in his “true story” hostage thriller “A Day and a Half.” He’s aiming for something like a Swedish “Dog Day Afternoon.”

There’s a member of a minority with grievances real and imagined, media misbehavior, comical miscalculations, absurd-on-the-face-of-them demands and unexpected turns at every, um, turn.

But this thriller, titled “En dag och en halv” in Swedish (with subtitles or dubbed into English) never escapes the low heat that makes it feel “low stakes,” a generic take on the “hostage” narrative, never quite living up to its promise, never much more than a pedestrian entry in the genre.

Artan (Alexej Manvelov) walks into a clinic in rural Sweden, waits with increasing fury for an “appointment” with Louise, and gets nowhere with the officious clerk in charge, even after he tells her Louise is his wife.

Eventually the gun comes out. Soon after that, a couple of people are hurt. And then, a panicked Louise (Alma Pöysti) is in the deranged clutches of a man she’d describe as her “ex.” He wants their little girl, whom she has “taken from me.”

Fares Fares plays Lukas, the only hostage negotiator close by, a man who strips to his underwear to show his lack of weapons, good intentions and perhaps submit to the gunman’s control, and get his relationship woth Artan off on a good foot.

Does it work? Lukas wants to look into Artan’s backpack.

“She kidnapped my daughter and now I’m a TERRORIST? ALL immigrants are TERRORISTS?”

There’s more than a whiff of “you (Swedish) people” in Artan’s grievances. He is Turkish (apparently) and faces a lot of discrimination. The media doesn’t need any encouragement in seeing a Middle Eastern immigrant, waving a pistol around and taking his wife hostage, in exactly the way Artan dreads.

He wants his daughter. He wants to get “them” out. A flight? A boat? A very long drive?

Over the course of that “Day and a Half,” blunders, missteps and the much messier than it seems relationship situation unravels in an “unmarked car” that the police hand over without bothering to fill the gas tank.

Lukas learns, reluctantly, of the soap opera whose final act he’s a reluctant player in. And we and Artan learn about how messy Lukas’s own personal life is.

There’s a resigned tone to much of this film, a fatalistic “This can only end one way” despite every quirky shift in direction and mood.

The tense moments have barely any tension to them at all. And the weirdness is just ordinary enough that we shrug it off with a “Sure, that could happen.”

The immigrant subject matter hints at a story with a political edge. And the film’s brevity suggests a taut, quick thriller with steadily rising suspense. But our co-writer director and star doesn’t let things play out that way.

Rating: TV-MA

Cast: Alexej Manvelov, Alma Pöysti and Fares Fares.

Credits: Directed by Fares Fares, scripted by Fares Fares and Peter Smirnakos. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:34