At Point Blank (2003)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Brilliant and touching

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Some cops are killers, a robbery can be a kidnapping in disguise, and a friend may turn out to be an enemy after all. Peter Lindmark does wonders when he gets to work with his own script, rather than the novel he used as the basis for his most recent movie, "Exit". While "Exit" is as complicated as it is predictable, "Rånarna" tells a simple story that is full of surprises. There seems to be no bottom as grand larceny investigator Karla Arvidsson (Sofia Helin) is sucked deeper and deeper into her current case, a series of highly professional bank robberies rooted in paramilitary right-wing underground circles. Much as the movie owes to the clever script, it's Sofia Helin's personal touch that makes you want to know what happens next. She makes Karla come alive as a rich character, with a story of her own that extends well beyond the two hour window of the movie. No doubt she will stay with you for a while. Go see it if you liked 2001's "The Pledge".

Standard procedure for Swedish movies today seem to be to start by throwing plausibility out the window and continue down that path for the rest of the process. Rånarna is another fine example of a movie making very little sense.Banks in Stockholm are being robbed by a highly efficient "military-styled" gang of robbers. Two police officers start investigating the case that soon becomes more complicated than it would appear at first.As usual in Swedish film the cast is mostly made up of the same people you have seen over and over again. Mikael Persbrandt must be in every Swedish film from the last few years! But that's OK i guess since Persbrandt is one of few that performs solidly here (like he usually does). The problems with this film mostly revolves around the story itself. First of all the robberies feel mostly like background. Rather this is more a movie about a young policewoman fighting to prove herself in a male world (like that has not been made a thousand times before with a decent actress instead of Sofia Helin). Also there is a completely unbelievable plot twist near the end that seems about as plausible as Aliens landing. But still, i did think it was a quite nice touch considering i was half asleep right about then. It spiced things up a bit (and actually saved the rating from dropping another step).In the end the main problem is the same thing as with most other Swedish movies of this kind. Simply that the action and suspense doesn't live up to the standards we are used to from other movies of this kind (mostly Hollywood). It feels cheap and rather weak in comparison. In my opinion Swedish filmmakers should try to focus more on plot and acting, and forget about trying to make "Hollywood-action light" like they do now. Because this becomes yet another forgettable effort from the Swedish movie-industry. I rate it 3/10.

For all of you that don't speak swedish: The swedish ginal] title of this film; "Rånarna" translates into something in the line of "The Robbers". This fact is the main problem I have with the film, cause it's not really about the robbers at all. It's about a young woman working for the swedish police researching robberies. A regular desk job one would think, but this girl is soon out on the field taking matters into her own hands, as the story goes, even shooting one of the robbers... Exactly: We've seen this before. The fact that there's a rather interesting twist to the plot halfway through doesn't really help as the ending is just as cliché as the first two thirds of the film.What saves it from being just another mainstream film is the fact that it's masterfully executed in all ways, that the actors are as great as they are and don't overact and that the director really manages to keep it as thrillingly exciting as it is for the most of the story. One thing that I really loved about this film is the fact that it's music sets the right mood when it's needed, but is absent for the rest of the time, which gives a nice sense of reality to the shootouts and car-chases spread throughout the film. A nice touch! The fact that Michael Persbrandt is one of the few swedish actors that often tend to get typecasted sadly hurts the film as you know that he's not going to just play the boyfriend of the heroine and be a supporting character in the background, but that's something you have to neglect.All in all it's an entertaining film that steals more money in it's plot than time from you. 7/10

Quite typical for swedish movies of this type. Strange that the acting was soooo bad, these actors usually give a good show. The casting was poorly done, it made you expect something (I won't tell you what). The lead character was awful... I don't know where they find her. Anyway, stay away from this and go see "Den Tredje Vågen" instead, this is swedish action in is prime.