♥♥♥♥♥
+ 2nd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Action Movie of the Year + Best Debut Movie of the Year + Best Fight Scene of the Year: The laundry room fight + Best Poster of the Year
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| A heavily equipped cop stands on a vandalized police car during a stylized sundown on this poster for Frederik Louis Hviid and Anders Ølholm's Shorta |
A rookie cop gets partnered up for patrol with a seasoned 'conflict specialist' colleague and against orders the two venture into the tense ghetto neighborhood, where a recent violent arrest has brought tempers up to the boiling point.
Shorta is written and directed by debuting great Danish filmmakers Frederik Louis Hviid (Follow the Money/Bedrag (2019)) and Anders Ølholm (Ækte Vare (2014, writer)).
The story opens with a moment from the arrest that results in the hospitalization of the young man from the ghetto, a scene that seems inspired by the tragic George Floyd arrest and death in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May 2020, - but the scene was written and shot long before that time. What follows is a story of strife, conflict, crime and ghetto problems, racism vs. hatred of authorities and the police especially, a reflection of reality unfortunately, which takes a Danish context and problem and amplifies it.
Hviid and Ølholm do so with clear role-models in Training Day (2001) and John Carpenter movies such as Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Escape from New York (1981), and the result is a heady brew of testosterone-laced low-budget action full of adrenaline, great dialog and dedicated performances:
Simon Sears (The Exception/Undtagelsen (2019)) is good as the conflicted younger policeman who takes a mostly passive approach to the wrongs of his colleagues but gets pushed to reckon with himself here. Jacob Lohmann (The Rain (2018-19)) goes through a lot in Shorta, which makes good use of his bull-ish physique. Debuting Tarek Zayat impresses as young Amos, a boy who gets arrested for a misdemeanor and becomes a kind of hostage/helper to the two cops as they get lost in enemy territory.
Despite the film's violent action-aspirations, the filmmakers keep it real and related to issues that will be relatable to those living in or near ghetto areas: The unprovoked and demeaning public personal search of a young man; recruitment of children and teenagers to gangs, the struggle against that; the hardening and tribe mentality in both the gang and police cultures; the downwards spiral of a neighborhood; the mother's anxiousness for her children and so on, - Shorta successfully incorporates it all with winning performances all around.
The film ends a bit abruptly, and I would have liked an epilogue fade-out scene from say a week or a month after the events in the film. But this doesn't rock the fact that Shorta is a thrilling and rare feat that shouldn't be missed in the cinema.
Related post:
2020 in films - according to Film Excess
Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: In excess of 1 mil. $
= Uncertain
[Shorta premiered 5 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 108 minutes. Hviid and Ølholm began working on the project 6 years before its release. Shooting took place in Denmark. The Svalegården neighborhood portrayed in the film is fictional. The film has sold 87,775 tickets in Denmark in its first nearly 3 weeks, coming to a roughly 1 mil. $ gross. The release is negatively affected by the China Virus pandemic, which is closing down thousands of cinemas in Europe. The film is set to open in film festivals in Lithuania and Sweden in November. Hviid and Ølholm do not have their next project announced yet. Lohmann returns in Retfærdighedens Ryttere (2020); Sears in Shadow and Bone (TV-series, post-production); Zayat does not have another gig yet, (and is studying law in Copenhagen.) 329 IMDb users have given Shorta a 7.5/10 average rating.]
What do you think of Shorta?
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