Mark Reviews Movies: ENFORCEMENT

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 18, 2021

At the start of Enforcement, a pair of cops are chasing a 19-year-old Black man through a building. We don't see much of the resulting confrontation. We only hear it. Then, directors Frederik Louis Hviid and Anders Ølholm cut directly to a close-up of the young man's face, pressed on its side to the ground. He says three, all-too tragically familiar words: "I can't breathe."

The rest of the movie follows a different pair of cops, going about their regular patrol in Copenhagen. One of them believes the first two cops, currently suspended pending an investigation, were in the right. The other was there for the "incident," which has left the young man in a coma and on life support. Jens Høyer (Simon Sears) saw what he saw. He knows what happened as a result. He's not speaking about it now, because Jens is trying to decide how much he's going to say when that internal investigation comes asking him questions.

That's the setup of this story, from a screenplay also written by the co-directors, and it walks a very fine line between examining the effects of police violence and/or brutality, as well as the mindset and systems that allow it to occur, and exploiting such behavior, as well as its consequences, for a more straightforward thriller. Hviid and Ølholm certainly make an admirable effort to dissect how the opinions and interactions of these main characters can lead to specific cases of police malfeasance, as well as how those specifics point to a series of bigger systemic problems. They simply don't seem to quite know how to bring those observations and critiques to an equally thoughtful story.

Jens is assigned to partner up with Mike Andersen (Jacob Lohmann) on the day following the encounter with the 19-year-old. He's told it's to keep Mike, who is very vocal about his belief that the two cops were right and has a history of letting his temper get the better of him, in line. It doesn't take too long for Mike to start pressing Jens about his personal life, his own opinion on the matter, and his plan for what he's going to say during the investigation. There isn't much time between those interrogations and when Mike's temper, fueled by some overt racism and xenophobia, starts to show its ugly head.

The dynamic here is fascinating and frightening. Mike shouldn't be a cop, and he definitely shouldn't be one working this particular part of the city, which has a majority of immigrants and people descended from the Middle East and Africa. He throws around racial, ethnic, and religious epithets with as much ease in public as he does in private. Mike is quick to profile people, comfortable intimidating and threatening them, and isn't afraid to use physical force when he feels undermined or insulted.

He's the quintessential "bad apple" in the metaphor when people make excuses that racism and excessive force are just the acts of single, outlier police officers (How often do those excuse-makers forget the rest of the metaphor—that one spoils the bunch?). The most pointed part of Hviid and Ølholm's portrayal of the dynamic between Mike and Jens is that it doesn't let the latter off the hook for what happened and what happens.

There's a notable silence from this character. Jens doesn't intervene when Mike crosses the obvious line. He doesn't say anything after any of these confrontations. He clearly holds himself up as a good man and a good cop, but his silence—during and after Mike's tirades or illegal actions—speaks volumes. His moral conundrum about telling the truth about what happened the 19-year-old shouldn't seem like one, but he's as much a part of this system as Mike, who asserts Jens should have the backs of those two cops, lest the day come that Jens needs someone to have his.

The filmmakers understand this mindset—this systemic culture of silence or looking the other way—and communicate it with keen, critical insight. Mike eventually arrests Amos (Tarek Zayat), on whom he performed an illegal—and humiliating—search and whom he spots within a group of teenagers after a milkshake is thrown at the patrol car. With the teen in the back, word comes the other teenager has died. Unrest and, possibly, riots are imminent. The two cops get caught up in them.

All of these observations, characterizations, and critiques aren't dismissed as the story becomes a lengthy chase, with the cops together and, later, separated trying to maneuver their way through escalating violence—with targets specifically on them—toward safety. The movie does give Amos some depth, and later, his mother (played by Özlem Saglanmak) explains that people tend to believe what others say about them—especially if it's a cop painting an entire group of people as criminals. That she tells Mike he should know a thing or two about that provides a bit too much cover for the character.

That's a bit of the larger problem here. Hviid and Ølholm let the action get in the way of their bigger ideas, and as a result, those ideas start to look smaller and far more simplified. Enforcement may become a visceral, engaging thriller, but since the movie starts as much more than that, the result underwhelms.

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