Enforcement movie review & film summary (2021)
If anything, the title of “Enforcement” suggests a level of moral relativity (or psychological complexity) that co-writer/directors Federik Louis Hviid and Anders Olholm never really aspire to. Granted, there’s not room for anything but a simplistic kind of identification with Hviid and Olholm’s characters given their plot’s focus and trajectory. This person of color is good because he wants to save (and therefore forgive) our white antiheroes, but this one’s bad because he’s defined exclusively by chest-thumping violence. And when the movie’s over, nothing is resolved that the filmmakers didn’t side-step or reduce to a few unconvincing symbols of hope for a more equitable future. You might like “Enforcement” if that’s a line you already want to buy; there’s otherwise not much here to change your mind.
“Enforcement” starts by nettling viewers with images of a young Muslim man in a chokehold. “I can’t breathe!” he cries. “Stay still!” says the cop. This wouldn’t be such a low blow if the image wasn’t the payoff to the movie’s opening sequence: we hear the young man’s cries before we see him because, when the scene begins, the camera is in the hallway, just out of view from the room where this unsettling scene takes place. So when we see who’s yelling “I can’t breathe!” that line only effectively gets a rise out of viewers. This man’s name is Talib Ben Hassi (Jack Pedersen) and his death—later, off-camera, from complicating injuries—is only important as an incitement to violence.
Svalegarden’s riot tests the resolve of bad cop Mike Andersen (Jacob Hauberg Lohmann), conflicted cop Jens Hoyer (Simon Sears), and good Muslim Amos Al-Shami (Tarek Zayat), the last of whom is detained and then dragged along by the movie’s white protagonists. Amos is the most interesting of these three characters since he hopes to be a “Big Brother,” or a mentor figure for younger community members. Big Brothers are also Guardian Angel-type neighborhood patrolmen.
Unfortunately, Amos is only a secondary character since most of “Enforcement” predictably concerns Mike and Jens, and how their actions in Svalegarden reflect their general character. Jens, who we’re told was a passive (but conflicted!) observer of Talib’s arrest, shares a manly sort of moment with Amos: “you throw like a b***h” he tells Amos during a pivotal scene. They both laugh. Mike, a racist who not only hates “gypsies” but was also an active participant in Talib’s abuse, does not fare as well.
