44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out

Rented the DVD and enjoyed it immensely. The story is well told and scripted. This is by far the best police drama/action movie of the year. Unbelievable how this was released directly to DVD, while garbage like SWAT received millions of revenue during a major theater release. The only thing this movie lacks is star power. Everything else is good. I vaguely remembered reading about the true story the movie is based on, but although I knew the result (the movie is true to the facts) I was highly entertained and excited watching this flick at home. Dear studio bosses: fire whoever made SWAT and get Simoneau for your next police drama.

On 28 February 1997, two men heavily armed with AK-47 try to heist the Bank of America of North Hollywood, but their plan fails and they are kept under siege by the LAPD. Along forty-four minutes, Los Angeles witnesses live on television one of the greatest shoot-out of the American history.

Based on a true event, this movie impresses regarding the scenes of intense shoot-out, with the cast having also great performances. However, the statements of the characters, showing the LAPD as a brotherhood or family, do not seem to correspond to the reality showed in other police stories in American movies. Anyway, this film is a surprisingly good and worthwhile entertainment. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "44 Minutes - O Tiroteio de North Hollywood" ("44 Minutes - The North Hollywood Shoot-Out")

Plays off as a "day in the life of" at first, which was a pretty good move, I thought. Kind of "Cops"ish, with periodic interjections from the officers involved in the shootout, which does well to give the viewer the mindset of the people. I had a problem with some of the scenes of the two gunmen alone, making comments back and forth, which we don't really know what they were thinking, or saying, since it isn't like they are available anymore to tell us. But, dramatic license and all, it's hardly anything that Fox can't be forgiven for doing. They did an exceptional job with the firefight. You really get a sense of the sheer chaos that was happening then. The freeze frame cuts for commercial breaks were a nice touch as well, giving you a snapshot of the moment, which as I understand, happens in the mind of people in these types of situations sometimes.

The movie was credible, and nicely done. You don't get the full effect by just watching the action in the last hour. The narrations given, and the scenes from the first hour, help set the tone for what started out as an average work day in Los Angeles, but then sank an entire area into a heated war zone before lunchtime had even come around. Wouldn't have been one I'd have paid money to see, but for a made-for-TV-movie, I've seen a whole lot worse, but more importantly, not many better.

After watching the film then doing the research of what really happened, I didn't know what was more unbelievable the film or the raw footage on you tube, even though the film doesn't stick to all of the facts I still couldn't believe that two guys caused that much chaos.

The film seen as it is is actually pretty good but I think after seeing some of the raw footage this film would've been a lot better if it stayed closer to the facts in order to add to the realism, but like I said the overall film isn't bad at all, the performances were great all around, Micheal Madsen's character was likable especially over what he does at the beginning of the film.

Personally I liked the film but would've honestly proffered a different take on the subject matter, at least this film doesn't glorify the robbers by portraying them as the victim.

I have to admit, I was impressed by the factual accuracy of this TV movie. They filmed at the actual BofA branch that was the location of the robbery, although the logo on the sign is different now (which is forgivable). The camera angles were all correct (i.e. the same as the actual news footage of the robbery). They even showed the key shack being shot up, and they had the right type of blue *shorts* for one of the SWAT officers to wear during the capture of robber #2-- if you're familiar with the North Hollywood Shootout, you know what I'm talking about. Despite a few minor changes to increase dramatic tension (such as the deletion of a motorcycle officer who rescued Mario Van Peebles's character so Michael Madsen's character could rescue him) and a blatant anti- gun comment by one of the officers "I can't believe they let people just buy this stuff" (in the B&B gun shop) this telefilm was very enjoyable. I especially liked the fact that it was filmed in a documentary style, with every person's point of view being shown. Very well done, with some prominent actors. When does the DVD come out!?