Izzat

Izzat is a realistic portrait of the gang culture among immigrant children in Oslo in the 80-90's. The movie portraits the destiny of Wasim, Riaz and Munawar, three young boys growing up in Oslo's east side at the time. They find school hopeless and boring when they get drawn to the environment in East Side Crew -a gang ruled by the hardboiled brothers Sadiq and Khalid. It starts with petty theft, but soon develop into drug dealing, abuse and murder. The scriptwriters, both immigrants, grew up in Oslo east and observed the environment at close range and the director capture the story in an raw way. The movie also explains the big gap between cultures and why the gang environment could flourish the way it did. Izzat became a big hit in the movies and have been praised among the audience and critics.

After watching this movie, I just thought "what a movie!".

Well - Norwegian directors hasn't been the greatest and cleverest action-movie makers like Spielberg, Roland Emmerich and Peter Jackson. Every time a director tried, the movie failed.

But in 2005, the fresh director Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen took, with his movie, a little step for a man but a big step for Movie-Norway.

The actors (Emil Marwa, Elyas Mohammed, et cetera) performs very well in the film. Everything feel so real, so intense.

We meet three Pakistani-Norwegian boys in Oslo, 1984, named Wasim, Riaz and Munawar. Those boys gets involved with the East Side Crew gang. First, there is small jobs like thieving and things like that - after ten years, they become dangerous, hard armed and drug-dealing gangsters.

Applause to Rolfsen and his cast!

The new norwegian gangster movie delivers what it's promising. It kinda reminded me of A Bronx Tale from 1993 with Robert De Niro but with some more and detailed violence. The movie is great, the acting is awesome and the characters are brutal but real. I know this since I have been with these kind of people before and seen it upclose and personal.

I went to see this with a open mind, after seeing Uno on the cinema last year I kinda figured this would be some of the same but it were way better. I can safely recommend this to all of you out there. Just enjoy some gangster stuff taken from the reality and see what crime has become and how it got that way in Norway. I'm once again hooked and looking forward to the next great norwegian movie.

8 out of 10 stars in my book.

Izzat may be the very first movie from Norway which can be classified as a good movie, not just a "good-to-be-Norwegians"-movie.

Izzat paints an image of Oslo, Norways capital, and its crime-environment in the mid-90's. We follow Wasim and his involvement in Westside Crew, the Pakistanian crime-gang.

What makes this movie extra special, is the realness of it all. Several Pakistanis which are familiar with the crime and the gangs in Oslo, say that the movie is extremely real, with the exception of a few details.

Unfortunately, Izzat has got a few problems with the acting. Both of Wasims friends, and his sister, suffers from bad acting.

The soundtrack however, is outstanding. Typical rock music from the mid-90's, and even better, several Norwegian bands! All in all, if you speak Norwegians, or if this movie is dubbed into English sometime, absolutely one of THE films this year.

The fact that people have not learned that they can not see a Norwegian movie with high expectations is incredible. If you come expecting something good, or great, you should go for a different movie. That said.

As for the acting; there was little to no passion shown by the actors. This however portrays well the environment the "gangsters" come from as well as pre-dating the show from todays date. Poor acting, but it worked in a very weird way.

The retro view on things was quite nice and it really made the experience of the movie into something that I enjoyed.

The story is simple. Gangster, drugs and killing. During most of the film I was having flashbacks from "Menace II Society".

All in all, it felt like reproduction of most gangster movies, put into a new cultural setting and downsizing the actors and cinematography. Decent movie, not great, but over my expectations.