Shorta/Enforcement - a review!

It's rare that a Danish film is received well by everyone, particularly when it's made by two relatively unknown directors. They received some money from The Danish Film Institute, and then they got to work making an action thriller, that is fairly well put together. The story spans just over a day, and we follow two police officers, Jens and Mike, on their patrol in the wake of the violent arrest of a 19 year old man, who ends up in a coma. Once confirmation comes through that the young man has died, the two cops are trapped in the ghetto, where the deceased was from, with tensions mounting towards them. It's now up to them to find a way out, before they are killed.

Alongside them is Amos, a boy they arrested for throwing an item at their squad car. He helps them navigate the maze of buildings, until they reach safety.

One of the cops, Mike, is extremely racist, which can be tough to watch, while Jens is much more respectful towards everyone. Mike uses derogatory terms towards everybody, and I would imagine that the actor playing the racist cop, had to ask if the other actors were okay with being called extremely rude and disrespectful names. I met the actor who is playing Mike, when I was on a shoot for a crime tv show, and he's super friendly and caring towards everyone, so it was weird seeing him take on this racist of a role.

The setting of the movie is in a place called Svalegården, which is based on a real life ghetto about 15 minutes driving from where I live. It was weird seeing that on screen, but the setting really helped making Shorta a thrilling and exciting watch. Shorta, by the way, is Arabic for cop, and the original title for the movie was "panser", which means armor in Danish. It's also the Danish slang word for cop. So this is very much a cop based film, with certain elements mixed into the story. Racism, police brutality and violence, to name a few.

The cast in the film is Jesper Lohmann as Mike, Simon Sears as Jens and Tarek Zayat as Amos. Tarek in particular is great in the film. When you think of Danish films, you might think that all we make are gloomy crime dramas, and cringe worthy comedy, which is true. This is the second time a Danish film has tried to be a serious action film, the first one being the WWII drama Flammen & Citronen.

In general, Shorta was an enjoyable two hours of content.

8/10

Trailer for Shorta/Enforcement: