Hold-Up

Like you are an invisible spectator in all the situations. I felt "involved" from the 1st to the last scene. Not over dramatized.

I just finished seeing this one I found it very worthy to have a look at it.

The story is told in a different way Hollywood uses to do and a different view of a action movie is kind of rare.

OK, the camera is kind of shaky almost all the time but I've said it before: when there is a reason for it for me it's OK. Here the tension is printed by this moving camera and also by the fast editing - without this two elements is kind of difficult to make the film moving or interesting.

The camera closure to the actors shows an intimacy to the characters, we see their expressions constantly and without this it would be difficult because there is no so many dialogues or "shot/reverse-shot" kind of scenes, the action took all the time needed.

The point of views are interesting but sometimes confusing even with the subtitles indicating the time, not a big problem to me.

Nokas has a nice and interesting kind of storytelling that is unusually welcome - at least for me.

This movie is an interesting project, as it tries, more than anything else, to be accurate. Everything on location, local actors, following the actual events as closely as possible. This is not enough to make it a good movie, but it does make it interesting.

But this is more than any "TV-recreation", because it's obvious that director has a certain ambition here. The movie "Heat" is directly mentioned in this, as it distances itself from it. They wanted to go in a different direction, and they achieved it. Despite a lot of action, it never feels like an action movie.

But it's a challenge to make a movie telling a story from several perspectives at the same time, especially if you don't lend yourself the freedom to change the chronology up a bit to make it more exciting. This leads to the movie jumping back and forwards in time quite a bit. It never really gets confusing, but the solution is not ideal.

While much of the acting is good, there are certain deliveries of dialogue that takes you our of the experience. But considering the project, it's worth going for the local actors.

In 2004 eight men disguised as the police special forces (SWAT) attempted to rob the Nokas Cash Central in the city of Stavanger. The tragic result of this crime was the death of a police officer who was shot while being in his vehicle and mass-panic in the center of the small Norwegian town. The movie is set on location, adding to the realistic effect while it is shot with a hand-held camera which makes the film all the more suspenseful and full of tension.

We, as the audience, are watching the preparation of the heist, some hours before the actual event with the robbers making their final decisions and the police officers in the Stavanger Station being blissfully ignorant about what's about to happen. The actual robbery covers the entire second half of "Nokas" and is shot in a masterful way by the director Erik Skjoldbjærg ("Insomnia", "Okkupert"). The actors' performances are all great, even though the nature of this film doesn't offer many opportunities to exhibit acting skills. The director states the real facts about the consequences of this crime in the end and it amazed me that 51 of the 57 in total Kroner that was stolen were never found. If you are a true crime fanatic, this is a film not to miss and the same is true for all Nordic Noir fans who are tired by fictional stories and want to watch something else.

The NOKAS robbery was a huge thing here in Norway. It was historical, stuff like this very rarely happens in our rather big, but people-empty little strip of land. It was a real talker, on the news and in the newspapers for a long time.

Anyhow, after the world controversy had died down and most of the crooks were in prison, the movie about it all came out.

Now, this is not a bad movie. Considering it's Norwegian it is rather good. But it never crosses the line into real good territory.

Most of the actors aren't big names, or really famous at all, and that works pretty good in something like this, as you don't want to be too attached to the actors. They do a decent job, too.

It has some intense action, some cool shots, and it being true of course leave a little bit of an impact. But I do think it could have been a little more edgy, for it to come across as more dramatical. I don't know.

It's alright.