This movie will not necessarily disappoint, but probably surprise those expecting a traditional movie with a plot and character progression etc. Nokas has none of that. Instead this is an extremely detailed reenactment of the robbery, based on witness statements, security camera footage and interviews with police officers and even some of the robbers.
The movie begins with the gang getting dressed and ready to go, and ends with them taking off with the money. Everything in between is basically the big heist scene from the movie Heat, Norwegian style, for 80 minutes.
To understand why anyone would make a movie like this, you'd probably have to be Norwegian. And what I mean by that is that Norway is a very small country where bank robberies of any kind are very uncommon. Needless to say a robbery of this magnitude resulted in an absurd media circus which literally lasted for years. All the robbers became household names and some even got their own "super villain" nicknames, such as "The Shadow" and "The Master Brain". The general fascination only grew as the leader of the gang, while hiding from the police, supposedly ordered the armed robbery of the Munch Museum in Oslo where two of the world's most famous paintings, Scream and Madonna where stolen in order to force the police to shift focus.
Anyway, the movie is great. And what makes it so is the authenticity and the fact that this is what really happened. Normally when movies are based on real events, we get the directors own interpretation of what "might" have happened, often an interpretation full of nonsense and "liberties with the truth" in order to make it work as a movie. But no, this is it. This is as close to a real robbery you'll ever get on the screen. Even small details such as certain gestures, which can be seen in the real security footage, have been carefully duplicated. This makes for an extremely tense ride which will surely keep anyone interested in heist movies on the edge of their seat all the way through.
It's also quite chocking to see exactly how the police engaged the heavily armed robbers in a fierce firefight, in the middle of a town with hundreds of civilians in the area. How they continued to provoke the robbers even after hostages was taken, and finally how it all resulted in the death of a police officer. After watching the movie it seems as an even greater miracle that no one else got killed. Hopefully the Norwegian police have learned exactly why robbers carry heavy firearms. "The Master Brain" even explains it in the beginning of the movie when he says something like: "If the police shows up, just pad your weapons and show them we're the strongest. They won't engage". Well, they did. And it didn't end well.
