44 Minutos

Rented the DVD and enjoyed it immensely. The story is well told and scripted. This is by far the best police drama/action movie of the year. Unbelievable how this was released directly to DVD, while garbage like SWAT received millions of revenue during a major theater release. The only thing this movie lacks is star power. Everything else is good. I vaguely remembered reading about the true story the movie is based on, but although I knew the result (the movie is true to the facts) I was highly entertained and excited watching this flick at home. Dear studio bosses: fire whoever made SWAT and get Simoneau for your next police drama.

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.

On 28 February 1997, two men heavily armed with AK-47 try to heist the Bank of America of North Hollywood, but their plan fails and they are kept under siege by the LAPD. Along forty-four minutes, Los Angeles witnesses live on television one of the greatest shoot-out of the American history.

Based on a true event, this movie impresses regarding the scenes of intense shoot-out, with the cast having also great performances. However, the statements of the characters, showing the LAPD as a brotherhood or family, do not seem to correspond to the reality showed in other police stories in American movies. Anyway, this film is a surprisingly good and worthwhile entertainment. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "44 Minutes - O Tiroteio de North Hollywood" ("44 Minutes - The North Hollywood Shoot-Out")

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!?

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.