As "Enforcement" (2020 release from Denmark; 108 min.; original title "Shorta") opens, we are reminded that "Shorta" is the Arabic term for "police". We immediately switch to an intense scene in which cops use excessive force to arrest an Arab teenager, and immediately tensions rise in the Arab-dominated housing projects in Copenhagen. We are then introduced to Jens and Mike, two cops who are being teamed up for the day. "I'd rather commit suicide than ride with Mike for 8 hours", comments a female colleague of Jens. Turns out that Mike just might have a short fuse, if not worse... At this point we are 10 min into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the feature-length directing debut of Danish writer Ander Olholm. And what a debut this turns out to be! Almost from the get-go, Olholm creates a tense, at times almost unbearably tense, mood, pitting Danish cops against the large Arab community in Copenhagen. The movie is plot-heavy, so I am biting my tongue to avoid spilling anything. Suffice it to say that at the beginning of the film, Jens and Mike are portrayed as the "good cop, bad cop" routine. But does this hold up as the movie unfolds? Besides the crime drama aspects, the movie also reflects on the larger social and humanitarian aspects of the situation. It is important to keep in mind that Denmark is in Western Europe the least-friendly country when it comes to dealing with Arab migrants. The Danish immigration laws are border-line racist, to be honest (in 2021, Inger Stojberg, a former Danish Minister responsible for immigration matters in the prior government, was convicted after a court found her actions to be unconstitutional and racist--she didn't apologize or expressed remorse after the court's verdict and is now facing jail). Politics aside, I find the English movie title interesting: does "Enforcement" refer to "enforcing the laws" or does it refer to "more backup forces are needed"? Frankly both explanations are plausible. In the end, I was captured by this movie from start to finish, and found it to be one of the best police drama movies I've seen in a long, long time.

"Enforcement" was released in Europe in the Fall of 2020, and was released in the US on Hulu in Spring of 2021. I only recently found out about this film after it was mentioned by NPR as being one of their best movies of 2021. Better late than never, but I couldn't agree more! If you are in the mood for a very intense cop drama (European style),I'd readily suggest you check this out on Hulu or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

"ENFORCEMENT falls by the wayside when the good cop Jens is subjected to a fatal mistake, so as to pull through the about-face plot device and obscure the two cops' apparent discrepancy. Only the director-duo's tactic has no flair, it is leaden and arbitrary (like the coincidence-and-inexplicability-riddled plot),and a deal-breaking failing is that Muslims are treated as black-or-white ciphers (the radical rascals versus the good-hearted innocents),Hviid and Ølholm fails to fashion anything even remotely intelligent from the Muslim's point of view, exactly because of their own white privilege, this is their blind spot. The film may sound and look like an inspiring story against racism, but it is tired and jaundiced, pandering to white Danes and not doing right by the ethnic group. Again, diversity should be enforced within every and each position of the business, otherwise, it is reduced to tokenism."

read the full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thansk.

And I was very surprised considering I glanced at the reviews on here and a lot of people were displeased but I thought whomever worked on this did their job. I enjoyed the storytelling the writing, acting and everything, the ending was really spectacular. Very cool.