A kind of Danish Les Misérables meets Training Day, Shorta — Arabic for “police” — is a familiar but highly effective cops-come-under-fire-on-a-housing-estate thriller. Co-directed by Anders Ølholm and Frederik Louis Hviid, it’s an exciting, well-crafted policier, full of inventive action, but is also thoughtful and sensitive, giving its characters space to breathe and examining the situation from all sides.
It opens with impressionistic but effective filmmaking, as cops try to restrain 19-year-old Muslim Talib Ben Hassi (Jack Pedersen) while hauling him into a cell. Present at the aggressive arraignment are white officers Mike Andersen (Jacob Lohmann) and Jens Høyer (Simon Sears), who are subsequently put together on the beat so Høyer can temper Andersen’s macho, racist tendencies. The pair go on patrol in Copenhagen’s dangerous Svalegården district — the tension Høyer feels every time Andersen stops and searches someone is palpable — and, following the announcement of Talib Ben Hassi’s death in custody, soon come under fire from an increasingly violent Arab community.
After an artsy opening, Anders Ølholm and Frederik Louis Hviid deliver urgent, matter-of-fact filmmaking.
In exciting, tense, well-staged set-pieces, Høyer and Andersen are pursued through estates, high-rises and grocery stores, their journey becoming more challenging after they arrest Amos Al-Shami (Tarek Zayat, excellent) in a pointless stop and search. After an artsy opening, Ølholm and Hviid deliver urgent, matter-of-fact filmmaking — a foot-chase has the verve and veracity of Point Break’s famous handheld dash. Yet Shorta is about more than just the thrills. The film is full of interesting dynamics, from the relationship between Andersen, Høyer and Amos (a conversation about why many Arabs love Arsenal adds realistic texture), to a late-in-the-day relationship between Andersen and Amos’ mother, Abia (Özlem Saglanmak).
We’ve seen this film before — as well as Les Misérables and Training Day, it also shares DNA with Assault On Precinct 13 and Do The Right Thing — and the third act pumps itself up a little too big (hint: there’s an unloading of a machine gun à la John Rambo). But, for the most part, Shorta delivers a nuanced take on the fuzz-under-fire genre — there’s a real sense of modern surveillance, from eye-in-the-sky police helicopters to residents whipping out camera phones — all delivered via strong performances from Sears and especially Lohmann, who enrich potentially one-note, polar-opposite lawmen.