Shorta

Shorta, named for the Ara­bic word for police, is a lean cop thriller that explores the moral and phys­i­cal aspects of urban con­flict. Writer/​director duo Anders Ølholm and Fred­erik Louis Hviid’s debut fea­ture has a sharp pace, impres­sive verisimil­i­tude and sym­pa­thet­ic char­ac­ters culled from across the racial divide and whose moti­va­tions are clear.

Though pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with a har­row­ing extend­ed shift for Copen­hagen cop­pers Mike Ander­sen (Jacob Lohmann) and Jens Høy­er (Simon Sears), Shorta kicks off with a snap­shot of the vio­lent arrest of a 19-year-old Mus­lim man a few nights before. In ear­ly con­ver­sa­tions at a police sta­tion we learn that Høy­er wit­nessed the arrest and that two fel­low offi­cers like­ly went sig­nif­i­cant­ly over­board in their duties as Has­si is now in a coma. There is evi­dent­ly some con­cern from the high­er-ups about how will­ing Høy­er is to keep sch­tum about what he may have seen, so he is part­nered with no-non­sense stal­wart Andersen.

In the patrol car, it becomes clear that Ander­sen – though tough, depend­able and street-savvy – is a ghast­ly racist who makes no bones about his feel­ing for Romani peo­ple and Mus­lims. Høy­er keeps qui­et dur­ing Andersen’s rants but his silence and doubt­ing eyes say more than an angry response could. When the pair fol­low a car con­tain­ing a known crim­i­nal, they end up at Svalegår­den, a labyrinthine hous­ing estate main­ly pop­u­lat­ed by immi­grants they had been warned not to visit.

Soon, a teen foot­baller named Amos (Tarek Zay­at) who Ander­sen unjust­ly search­es and humil­i­ates throws a milk­shake at their car. They arrest him but, as they return to base, news of Hassi’s death fil­ters through to them and the estate’s res­i­dents. Rocks are thrown at their car win­dows and the trio find them­selves trapped as riots break out in Svalegår­den and across the coun­try. A tough night awaits before they can make their escape.

In a social cli­mate in which riots, racism and regret­table police actions are rarely far from the news, Shorta hits home. Høy­er, Ander­son and Amos ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly come to blows with one anoth­er and try to avoid the vio­lent upris­ing through­out the fic­ti­tious but believ­ably-depict­ed Svalegår­den, in stair­wells, toi­lets and car parks. Lohmann, Sears and Zay­at are excel­lent, each com­pro­mised by their own social con­di­tion­ing and fight­ing against them­selves, as well as foes armed with bricks, guns and Molo­tov cocktails.

Its plot is a law­man rever­sal of Wal­ter Hill’s The War­riors, though the tone here is more seri­ous than Hill’s film. As a state­ment of intent, Shorta recalls high-rise hotbeds such as Ladj Ly’s Les Mis­érables or La Haine in its urgency. That said, lighter moments also work well, par­tic­u­lar­ly a calm sec­tion when foot­ball chat includes Andersen’s mock­ery of Pre­mier League side Arsenal.

The occa­sion­al on-the-nose movie coin­ci­dence and rote plot point is for­giv­en as we speed to a dénoue­ment that is trag­ic but rings true. Though Ølholm and Hvi­id rely on a few genre clichés, theirs is a grip­ping sto­ry told with purpose.