Shorta

Feeling a but misled by the trailer that shows a very intense police hunt in a danish suburb. The movie also starts off like this, but the intensity quickly slows down and there is a lot of waiting, slow talking and the police officers just hiding from the riot. Great acting from the two police officers though and the directing and everything felt top notch.

Overall a pretty good police drama, with moments of action. We were two couples watching it together at home and fifty percent of us were sleeping half way in the movie.

Or even BAC NORD, if you prefer...It is a very modern crime drama, which is really related to the actual events that happen in France and also I guess in many other countries. So, it is normal to find this kind of topic on screen. This one is obviously careful not to be under the influence of the US way of story telling, and directing. It is efficient, made in a realistic way, but the good cop bad cop scheme is the main weak point of this film about the ghetto genre, after LES MISERABLES, BAC NORD, SNABBA CASH. Though this latest focused mainly on the punks and not the police after them. The only link with John Carpenter's film is the cops alone against an army of hoodlums. But it was in another time, forty five years ago. Characters are shown in such a way that you know this is not a propaganda film for or against police, even police brutality, or against the ghetto population, including the hoodlums. The ending is unfortunately a failure and could have been better. The only good thing is that was not predictable.

Its more a Hollywood style movie than a euro thriller, but the themes of racism, corruption, and police violence are thrown in there for contemporary social conscience reasons at least. Not sure which side the production is on, as the ending leans towards a survival of the fittest theme. The police are certainly not portrayed as being heroic in anyway through out the film though. Although others did not seem to like the ending, I have to give it credit for avoiding cliches. Its definately not a pro police film, but does attempt to show, both, the sides of the police, and the impoverished exploited ethnic minorities in Denmarks ghettos. Its not over sentimental and there are some surprising character arcs. There are better movies out there, but I quite enjoyed it. Despite the heavy thematic elements at play, I feel this movie was made for entertainment.

I found the story compelling and interesting and promising, and the intense premise kept me watching and wanting to know what would happen, but I just found myself disappointed.

Great acting and solid writing, but I was frustrated by the directing to some extent, particularly the poorly filmed or edited fight scenes.

I appreciated the good cop, bad cop theme, but found that just fell apart over the course of the movie. For some reason the focus shifted from the good cop and the person he was protecting, to a long stretch where all we saw was the bad cop and what he was dealing with, even though we lost all sympathy for him by that point and didn't really care to get to know him. That didn't make any sense.

The final moments were certainly a twist, and also didn't make sense. Honestly a lot of build up and suspense for a weak ending.

In all, this movie had promise, but ultimately fails to deliver.

If you are to watch one police movie all year, then this is it. I won't spoil too much, but you are sucked in from the first five minutes and left breathless for the rest of movie. Absolute must see. Especially, if you're Danish of course.