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DVD Nokas
 Run time: 87 min Rating: 6.5 Genres: Action | Biography | Crime Director: Erik Skjoldbjærg Writers: Christopher Grøndahl Stars: Marit Synnøve Berg, Frode Winther Gunnes, Morten Larsen |
| Storyline The movie portrays Norway’s most spectacular robbery, where 11 men occupied central Stavanger for twenty minutes and escaped with 57 million kroner (appx $10 million). A police officer was shot and killed. |
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| Plot Keywords: police, cathedral, square, stavanger norway, shootout | |
| Details: Country: Norway Release Date: 1 October 2010 (Norway) |
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On an early chilly morning in the quiet town of Stavanger, the Norwegian bank was caught off guard when a group of robbers siege the bank and subsequently the entire downtown area. It was a nerve-wracking couple of hours and in recreating this experience the filmmakers have done their best to stay true to the actual events. None of the actors are professional, the camera is jerky, and sometimes out of focus, and the time-line is broken up to introduce the different characters and to see the events through their eyes. The result of this is an exciting and fascinating film. We get to see how the robbers worked, without going into much detail and we get a great depiction of how the police and bystanders reacted. And it works so well because they stayed to true to the story and have structured the film so well that you are caught up in the film when it happens and it leaves a lasting impression after you have seen it. Especially a long shot near the end stays with out long after the film is over.
This movie will not necessarily disappoint, but probably surprise those expecting a traditional movie with a plot and character progression etc. Nokas has none of that. Instead this is an extremely detailed reenactment of the robbery, based on witness statements, security camera footage and interviews with police officers and even some of the robbers.
The movie begins with the gang getting dressed and ready to go, and ends with them taking off with the money. Everything in between is basically the big heist scene from the movie Heat, Norwegian style, for 80 minutes.
To understand why anyone would make a movie like this, you'd probably have to be Norwegian. And what I mean by that is that Norway is a very small country where bank robberies of any kind are very uncommon. Needless to say a robbery of this magnitude resulted in an absurd media circus which literally lasted for years. All the robbers became household names and some even got their own "super villain" nicknames, such as "The Shadow" and "The Master Brain". The general fascination only grew as the leader of the gang, while hiding from the police, supposedly ordered the armed robbery of the Munch Museum in Oslo where two of the world's most famous paintings, Scream and Madonna where stolen in order to force the police to shift focus.
Anyway, the movie is great. And what makes it so is the authenticity and the fact that this is what really happened. Normally when movies are based on real events, we get the directors own interpretation of what "might" have happened, often an interpretation full of nonsense and "liberties with the truth" in order to make it work as a movie. But no, this is it. This is as close to a real robbery you'll ever get on the screen. Even small details such as certain gestures, which can be seen in the real security footage, have been carefully duplicated. This makes for an extremely tense ride which will surely keep anyone interested in heist movies on the edge of their seat all the way through.
It's also quite chocking to see exactly how the police engaged the heavily armed robbers in a fierce firefight, in the middle of a town with hundreds of civilians in the area. How they continued to provoke the robbers even after hostages was taken, and finally how it all resulted in the death of a police officer. After watching the movie it seems as an even greater miracle that no one else got killed. Hopefully the Norwegian police have learned exactly why robbers carry heavy firearms. "The Master Brain" even explains it in the beginning of the movie when he says something like: "If the police shows up, just pad your weapons and show them we're the strongest. They won't engage". Well, they did. And it didn't end well.
Nokas is a a paradox that works. This careful reconstruction of Norway's biggest ever robbery avoids all sense of cliché – and opts for one of the better directorial decision seen in a crime / heist movie. No drama, no screaming villains or pretty girls, this is a superbly researched semi-documentary that simple records a five hour period in minutiae – yet it is tense, involving, and probably the best recreation of a bank robbery I have seen.
The Nordic style of speaking and manner is captured well – no-one "acts" they simply are, and here we get almost no character development – it's straight-up storytelling, using a lot of mid-shoulder mid-close and close-ups – it is well shot. The camera work etc; fits this well – it never feels amateurish.
Considering how iconic this real event was – in a country where bank robbery is extremely rare – they could have over-glamourised and made a Nordic Heat; by avoiding that trap they had made cinema, a film's film, and one where integrity respects the events but never loses the sense of adrenalin.
Good film-making all round.
Director Erik Skjoldbjærg (Insomnia, Prozac Nation) comes back with a stunning, high-intensity mix between art-house and heist movie – and thus redefines the genre. Based on real events, the film is a multi-plot run-through of the hours before and the first 25 minutes into Norway's most spectacular robbery (Easter 2004).
The movie has echoes of both Gus Van Sant's Elephant and United 93, and the final shootout bears resemblance to the corresponding scene in Heat, although this time it's "for real".
The Nokas robbery was already highly mythologized in Norwegian media, and I was very eager to see how the movie related to those myths. Which it didn't at all – and thereby contrasts the media circus around the event. A very sober and intelligent approach.
Nokas works remarkably well with its low-key, hand-held presence. The nerve of the event grabs you from the beginning, and carries you through to the brilliant last shot, where the true human impact of the event is felt through the eyes of a bus driver who, against his will, was drawn into the event.