Review: 'Enforcement' a Topical Mix of Action, Social Horror

When I think of Danish cinema, I don't tend to think of action films. "Enforcement" is billed as action, but I thought it was a really good work of horror. The tension, as well as the starkly shot physical reminders of the consequences of human violence, are brilliant - not excessively gory, but especially politically relevant around the world at the moment.

Co-writers/co-directors Frederik Louis Hviid and Anders Ølholm were inspired by a violent encounter between police and a young left-wing activist in the 1990s, and this project took six years to complete. I was impressed that instead of presenting us with pure copaganda, a genre that Americans clearly love and are a deep part of our own media, there are moments in which we are allowed to recognize that the police officers who are the film's main characters are not heroes, just extremely flawed men who are just as likely to fail as to succeed.

Police brutality injures an immigrant youth a day before Jens (Jacob Lohmann) and Mike (Simon Sears), two Danish police officers, happen to be in a high-rise, low-rent, primarily immigrant community. When news of the youth passing away hits the area, they are attacked and stranded with their arrestee, Amoss (Tarek Zayat). While they are armed and resourceful, they quickly lose most of their resources and hope as they attempt to figure out who will actually help them, and who just wants to murder them for revenge.

While the film takes place in Denmark, the main setting could be nearly any high-rise, low-rent community in the world through what looks like carefully planned editing. The lighting remains realistic, and there are reasonable amounts of gore and special effects, as well as makeup. While Denmark is demographically is overwhelmingly Danish in national origin, the film presents a very mixed community of people, which also includes Danish folk.

My only quibble with the film is that I do feel sympathy emanating for a "both sides" mentality from the work while, in reality, I'm not the kind of person who feels that we should be pushing for understanding; rather, we should be pushing for policies that prevent excessive use of force on unarmed civilians. At no point did I think Jens or Mike were going to face any serious consequences from shooting innocent people, molesting a young boy, or lying to other cops. I found myself cheering for the rainbow army of thugs who mostly didn't have guns, unlike the cops who were packing serious heat. I think that at some point, instead of pushing for understanding, we are going to have to create serious limits to the harms that police can do.

"Enforcement" premieres in theaters and on demand March 19.