44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out

So, there I was, dozing off in bed, about to turn off the TV when this movie starts up, Michael Madsen's eyes on the screen, giving the first monologue about how 90% of cops wind up never shooting their weapon. I was hooked right there.

The first act gives us a summary of a normal week-day's early morning preparation, getting ready for a day on the job, putting on your work clothes, making sure your name tag is straight, revising your weapon: all the things that define you.

The second act is the violence. While the robbers sit in their car outside of a Bank of America waiting for their initial target, the other primary actors are doing their jobs of law enforcement. When the target arrives, it doesn't go where the heavily-armed thieves have thought it would: confused, they decide to rob the bank. Everyday people see them enter and call in the emergency. Chaos ensues. When the duo emerges from the bank, they are met by dozens of police officers. The shootout begins with bullets flying everywhere from AK47 machine guns. The police figure out the two men are wearing body armour as they seem impervious to the return fire. Endless volleys and blood spattering moments as projectiles rip through vehicles, buildings, making targets of anyone and anything. Eventually, the bank robbers are stopped by sheer determination on the part of the LAPD.

The third act is the aftermath: destruction of public property, picking up the used brass casings, a review of the injuries, recognition of the heroism under extreme fire. And a denouément that shows how life just goes back to "normal" afterwards: the bank reopens the day after, life affirmation and dedication. We see in the final scenes a close up again of Michael Madsen describing the events and his reaction, and the camera pulls out to reveal that it is part of a sequence being worked on in an editing bay of one of the television stations that covered the shootout.

This made-for-TV production is absolutely gripping. It is almost a documentary re-enactment, but for small embellishments that hold interest by making the participants human and are dramatization. You may find yourself unable to take your eyes off the screen as it plays out. Madsen, Livingston and van Peebles give us good performances.

Plays off as a "day in the life of" at first, which was a pretty good move, I thought. Kind of "Cops"ish, with periodic interjections from the officers involved in the shootout, which does well to give the viewer the mindset of the people. I had a problem with some of the scenes of the two gunmen alone, making comments back and forth, which we don't really know what they were thinking, or saying, since it isn't like they are available anymore to tell us. But, dramatic license and all, it's hardly anything that Fox can't be forgiven for doing. They did an exceptional job with the firefight. You really get a sense of the sheer chaos that was happening then. The freeze frame cuts for commercial breaks were a nice touch as well, giving you a snapshot of the moment, which as I understand, happens in the mind of people in these types of situations sometimes.

The movie was credible, and nicely done. You don't get the full effect by just watching the action in the last hour. The narrations given, and the scenes from the first hour, help set the tone for what started out as an average work day in Los Angeles, but then sank an entire area into a heated war zone before lunchtime had even come around. Wouldn't have been one I'd have paid money to see, but for a made-for-TV-movie, I've seen a whole lot worse, but more importantly, not many better.

Since I was only about two miles away from the real shootout and saw the footage on the news about 100 times, I was quite interested in seeing the movie to see how accurately it would depict the real event. The film was not only accurate (with very few exceptions) but it was also riveting (with the shootout edited together with documentary-style testimonials from the policemen characters) and peppered with some FX-style swearing and graphic moments. Of the actors, Michael Madsen and Mario Van Peebles were the best (and most well known) and Ron Livingston was good too, but seemed a bit out of place as a hard-edged, SWAT team member. Interesting tidbits were that the gunmen's full names were never mentioned (one was referred to as Larry a few times, but nothing else) and the gunmen characters looked nothing like the real gunmen (the wrong one had long hair and one of the real guys was about 100 pounds heavier than the other). Also, Michael Madsen, who is often confused with Tom Sizemore, who was in the 1995 film Heat, brings up Al Pacino's character from Heat in one of his testimonials. Heat is often mentioned in the same breath as the real North Hollywood incident, because of the similar shootouts and the fact that the real gunmen used the movie as an informal training video for robbing banks. The real gunmen also were nicknamed the 'High Incident Bandits' and the shootout was also the basis for the final episode of the 1996-97 ABC cop show 'High Incident' starring Blair Underwood. Good film.

I have to admit, I was impressed by the factual accuracy of this TV movie. They filmed at the actual BofA branch that was the location of the robbery, although the logo on the sign is different now (which is forgivable). The camera angles were all correct (i.e. the same as the actual news footage of the robbery). They even showed the key shack being shot up, and they had the right type of blue *shorts* for one of the SWAT officers to wear during the capture of robber #2-- if you're familiar with the North Hollywood Shootout, you know what I'm talking about. Despite a few minor changes to increase dramatic tension (such as the deletion of a motorcycle officer who rescued Mario Van Peebles's character so Michael Madsen's character could rescue him) and a blatant anti- gun comment by one of the officers "I can't believe they let people just buy this stuff" (in the B&B gun shop) this telefilm was very enjoyable. I especially liked the fact that it was filmed in a documentary style, with every person's point of view being shown. Very well done, with some prominent actors. When does the DVD come out!?

This movie is surrounding the events of February 28, 1997 in Los Angeles. More specifically, a bank robbery gone wrong. Although I have heard of many inaccuracies in this movie, it was still an enjoyable action flick, despite the fact it was based on a true story.

The shootout between the two bank robbers, Larry and Emil, and what seemed to be just about the entire LAPD lasted 44 minutes. This is a huge amount of time in real life and is probably the longest gunfight I have seen in the movies as well. I can't think of a longer one right now anyways. So after getting to know the characters just a little bit, it's on with the action, and it was gripping. The sight of the robbers, decked out in armor and standing in the line of fire and just taking hits and keeping it going was awesome. It reminded me of video games where you just keep shooting the bad guys but they never die. In fact, if I had one complaint about the movie, it would be that all the officers on the scene either could not figure out to shoot at their heads or were not capable. I guess the overwhelming firepower on the thieves behalf was just too much for them to think straight.

Standouts in the cast are, of course, Michael Madsen, who can make anything fun to watch, even though his role here was limited. Mario Van Peebles played the deeply religious officer who tried to straighten up kids before it was too late. His character was very likable. Andrew Bryniarski and Oleg Taktarov were great villains, as always, but not much to them. Ron Livingston did good for his role but I don't know if it's just me, and thought he was a bit miscast, or am I just never going to get Peter Gibbons from Office Space out of my head. That's one of my favorite comedies and going from that to a hard nosed SWAT team cop wasn't doing it for me.

Good movie, none the less. If nothing else, I can recommend it for the gunfight. 8/10