URO

Norway, 2006, 104 minutes, Colour.
Nicolai Cleve Broch, Ane Dahl Torp, Ahmed Zeyan, Bjorn Floberg.
Directed by Stefan Faldbakken.

It looks as though every national cinema needs to do its drug culture thrillers. This is one of Norway’s attempts. While it is reminiscent of Hollywood variations on this theme, it is distinctively Scandinavian – with its overcast weather, to say the least. While this is a genre picture, it does not glamorise its subject.

The drug stuff is familiar: the anti-drug police squad, the loner clashing with his team and his boss, the club that is (here, literally) The Front, the wealthy boss, the callous underling, the addict heroine, the set-ups and the shootouts. However, the film also attempts a psychological portrait of the central cop, skilled at undercover work but too often a loose canon. He has traumatic memories (and lack of them) of his dead father. He is overtly hostile to his alcoholic mother. His work takes him to the club of a colleague of his father, a sexual attraction to his daughter and some moral dilemmas which take him sometimes in unanticipated directions.

The cast is effective and credible. The pace is fast. It is a Norse genre picture.

1.A film about Norwegian drug culture? The police? Squads and investigations? Undercover work? The zero tolerance of the Norwegian undercover police work on drugs?

2.The meaning of the title: a department in the police force in Oslo, undercover fighting drug trafficking? Other meanings suggested include: movement, energy, speed, stress, agitation, anxiety, nervousness, angst, disorder, alarm, tension, turmoil, lawlessness, violence? An apt title for the film?

3.The Oslo settings, police precincts, the streets? Bars and clubs? The waterfront? Homes and apartments? The musical score, atmospheric?

4.The opening, the hero stumbling along the road, the collapse, the undercover work, the arrest and chase? The guns? His brashness? The examination of tactics afterwards?

5.H.P. and his age, background? His father as a gambler, suicide? Absence from H.P’s life? His mother turning up, her concern about him, wanting to cook a meal – her alcoholism? His visits to her house, finding her collapsed? His anger at her, rejection of her? His finally seeing her in the hospital, her telling him the truth about his father? The traumatic effect of his father’s death, absence, the single mother? His recklessness when he was a young man? Putting it behind him in order to join the police force? His skills in undercover work?

6.Makker and his being a father figure as well as boss? The discussions, orders, his finding a flat, trying to confine H.P? His disappointment when he broke out? The tip-off about the drug deal? His support – but exasperation? A portrait of a sound Oslo police undercover police officer?

7.The other police, their attitude towards H.P., support, antagonism? Bashing him? Thinking he was selling out?

8.H.P. and his going to the club, dressing up, the ear studs etc? The encounter with Marco? The initial clash? The police chase, his being in the line-up – and released? The link with Marco? Combining with him, the financial deal, finding the money, collecting it from the other addicts? Frank and his deadline for the money? Their meeting the deadline? The delivery and the promises?

9.Mette, seeing her at the club, her father owning the club? Her relationship with Marco? Their knowing each other from the past? Her not knowing he was undercover? His using her to get close to Marco? The discovery that she was stealing from her father? Her excuse? Her drug-taking? Dependence on Marco – and his explaining it was only when she asked? Her relationship with H.P., the sexual encounter, the aftermath? His love for her? The clash with her father, the final confrontation, her drug-taking, her shooting her father? His taking the blame – and his going to prison for her? Everybody knowing that he had not killed Frank? Her coming to see him in jail – an appropriate ending for the film?

10.Frank, wealthy, the past relationship with H.P’s father, his taunting him about it? The club, the pretence that he was not dealing drugs? The set-up and the deal? The confrontation with his daughter? The drugs, her stealing the money, his anger with her? Her shooting him? The clean-up, Marco and H.P., disposing of the body and burning it?

11.Tough ingredients? Documentary style? Hand-held camera? The sense of immediacy and drama?

12.Comparisons with similar stories from other nations – and the Hollywood movies on drugs and police?