44 Minutos

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.

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.

It tells the story of the infamous 1997 North Hollywood shootout, where two bank robbers, wearing body armour and carrying AK-47s unleashed an unprecedented wave of gunfire at dozens of LAPD officers as they tried to make their getaway.

The incredible footage of this incident, broadcast live from TV news helicopters is unlike anything you've seen before. It's fascinated me for years, seeing such events, straight out of Michael Mann's Heat, played out for real.

So I was looking forward to this one but it was a disappointment and makes me wonder if the story could ever be done justice in a fictional movie. In the hands of director Yves Simoneau it's little more than a bloodier version of the countless Discovery and History channel reconstruction documentaries of the incident. Indeed the film's documentary-style approach, complete with talking heads, just reminds viewers of the fact that it's been done better previously. Instead of real people recounting the events we have mediocre actors. Instead of hard facts we have small inaccuracies and timelines altered for (understandable) dramatic purposes. Instead of the horrifying real footage we have poorly-edited action sequences.

I'd recommend watching one of those aforementioned TV documentaries, or the raw footage on YouTube, to get a better idea of what happened that day. That said, the drama inherent in the story means 44 Minutes can't help but be a moderately exciting film.

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 watched this on cable the other night and was very pleasantly surprised. It's well done, with solid acting from old pros Madsen and Van Peebles and very tight directing. The documentary style works well, and unlike most cops vs. robbers movies it shows the motivation and thoughts of the bad guys without glorifying them. It's obviously a bit of a PR piece for the LAPD, but it also makes some really good points about the availability of assault weapons and the failings of the justice and political system in keeping crooks from getting them. The locations used in the movie were the actual locations where the shootout took place, and this added immeasurably to the realism of the story. This film is a real cut above most cable fare and is really worth watching.