Enforcement: Muddled but Forceful Danish Cop Drama Echoes Current Issues in Throwback Style
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B
Judging by their steady output of crime dramas, Scandinavians have not solved all their social ills despite their good press and United Nations rankings.
Enforcement, the debut feature film from the Danish directorial team of Anders Ølholm and Frederick Louis Hviid, spotlights contemporary tensions between Danish police and immigrants, though very much in the mode of American seventies’ cop dramas. Think Sidney Lumet’s Serpico or John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, but in Danish and Arabic.
The film, known in Danish as Shorta (an Arab term for police) opens with a scene of queasy topicality. A 19-year-old dark-skinned teen being held down on the floor of a police station cries out “I can’t breathe,” a moment before he is choked into unconsciousness.
The next morning, it’s business as usual as the beat cops prepare for a tense day. The victim, named Tahib Ben Hassi (Jack Pedersen) lies in a hospital, between life and death, where he has become a symbol of police violence. The brass wants to flood the streets to counter expected protests and riots from the immigrant population. “We’re the people’s only safeguard against total chaos,” says the captain in a team pep talk.
Quiet watchful cop Jens Hoyer (Simon Sears) is taken aside by the captain who wants him share a patrol car with one of the men involved in the choking incident — veteran Mike Andersen (Jacob Lohmann), a sexist, racist, all-purpose nightmare — to keep him on a short leash during the difficult day ahead.
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Not coincidentally, Jens was a witness to the assault but has not yet made his deposition to Internal Affairs. As the day goes on, it becomes ambiguous who is monitoring whom.
Early in their shift, the two men end up in an immigrant apartment complex of Svalegarden they’ve been instructed to avoid. Mike, in high agitation, decides to harass Arab teenager Amos (Tarek Zayat). When the kid backtalks, the cop decides to teach the kid a humiliating lesson, which has barely concluded when news breaks that the choking victim from the previous night has died.
In minutes, the police find themselves surrounded by a rock-throwing crowd that disables their car. Looters, rioters, and protests fill the streets, out for justice or vengeance. The frightened cops, with the resentful Amos in their custody, find themselves running through warren-like basements, underpasses, and apartment corridors, calling for back-up that never comes.
The film-craft is impressive. Cinematographer Jacob Møller makes effective use of chiaroscuro lighting and handheld camera along with sparing use of percussive chase music, to keep the tension at a high simmer. The action proceeds in jolts and reversals, along with moments of reflection and hair-raising set-pieces, including one that reminds us never to get trapped in a slow elevator with an angry Rottweiler.
As effective as Enforcement is on a visceral level, it comes up short in any deeper reflection on the social crisis of its premise. Yes, there is character development — the bad cop shows his compassionate side, and the good one abandons his principles under fire.
Yes, there are sympathetic immigrant characters — Amos, his compassionate mother, and another teen who helps the cops. But their function here is essentially functional, like those occasional kind folks in any movie about soldiers behind enemy lines.
Otherwise, the film falls too casually into the trap of showing the enraged mob as the enemy, not part of those the public police have sworn to serve and protect.
Enforcement. Directed and written by Anders Ølholm and Frederick Louis Hviid. Starring Simon Sears, Jacob Lohmann, and Tarik Zayat. Available on VOD March 19.