Stockholm

[spoiler]
"What is it like being stuck in there with those criminals?"
"It's not too bad"
[/spoiler]

Stockholm is very enjoyable heist movie that depicts the Norrmalmstorg Robbery and the origin story of Stockholm Syndrome - when a hostage develops feelings of trust or empathy towards their captors.

This movie was thoroughly and absurdly entertaining. Ethan, Noomi, and Mark are great - as usual. It ain't no 'Dog Day Afternoon' but it has some of its vibe. Good movie!

I didn't fall in love with this movie straight away - it was a little too abrasive for my tastes. But over time, when it's absurdities set in., I began to warm to it, and ultimately had a good time watching it. In many ways, I became a victim of Stockholm Syndrome.

Film 85 (Goal: 300) of 2024

I don't really have too much to say about Stockholm. Despite being a fan of Hawke and thinking the premise was intriguing I had seen consistently less than favourable reviews. So I knew to limit my expectations, of which I had none.

Even with all that mind Stockholm just exists. There's not too much driving this film after the initial opening, which is decent enough. Funnily enough, once Mark Strong enters the film, it loses all aspects of drive and intrigue. That's not to blame Mark Strong, because he's a wonderful actor and he and Hawke work well together, but so much of the film is centered around the connection between Hawke and Rapace, and while both established actors - the chemistry isn't there. Add in some other boring and under established secondary characters and there isn't much going on here to sustain it's relatively short run time. Some of the better moments are the chess match between Hawke's Nystrom and Heyerdahl's Mattsson, but they're few and far between until the end and by then, all interest is lost. Ultimately underwhelming.

Film that benefits from not having high pretensions. You can see out of curiosity more than anything else.

It's like someone was told the actual story while in the early stages of an epic bender and then fourteen whiskey shots in he decided to scribble down what little he remembers on napkins with crayon.
Waking up the following morning with a hangover like the spawn of satan and with a pocket full of smeared napkins he writes the script for this movie and actually manages to get someone to fund it.
But still, regardless of how far from actual events this actually is it is surprisingly bad with actors like Hawke, Strong and Rapace really delivering sub-par performances and regarding casting it's hard to imagine a worse choice as Olof Palme than Shanti Roney.
If you're interested in what actually happened, read a book and if you're looking for a heist movie you'll be hard pressed to find a worse choice than this.