At Point Blank (2003)

You won't be disappointed!

Why so much hype?

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Standard procedure for Swedish movies today seem to be to start by throwing plausibility out the window and continue down that path for the rest of the process. Rånarna is another fine example of a movie making very little sense.Banks in Stockholm are being robbed by a highly efficient "military-styled" gang of robbers. Two police officers start investigating the case that soon becomes more complicated than it would appear at first.As usual in Swedish film the cast is mostly made up of the same people you have seen over and over again. Mikael Persbrandt must be in every Swedish film from the last few years! But that's OK i guess since Persbrandt is one of few that performs solidly here (like he usually does). The problems with this film mostly revolves around the story itself. First of all the robberies feel mostly like background. Rather this is more a movie about a young policewoman fighting to prove herself in a male world (like that has not been made a thousand times before with a decent actress instead of Sofia Helin). Also there is a completely unbelievable plot twist near the end that seems about as plausible as Aliens landing. But still, i did think it was a quite nice touch considering i was half asleep right about then. It spiced things up a bit (and actually saved the rating from dropping another step).In the end the main problem is the same thing as with most other Swedish movies of this kind. Simply that the action and suspense doesn't live up to the standards we are used to from other movies of this kind (mostly Hollywood). It feels cheap and rather weak in comparison. In my opinion Swedish filmmakers should try to focus more on plot and acting, and forget about trying to make "Hollywood-action light" like they do now. Because this becomes yet another forgettable effort from the Swedish movie-industry. I rate it 3/10.

Swedish action movies have over the past few years evolved into something that imitate American hardened action movies like "Heat" but with a low budget. This movie follows the same prescription as "Noll Tolerans" and "Livvakterna". However, it is obvious that they are trying too hard to make a cool and tough movie.The story has been seen before, the dialogue feels artificial and the acting is very poor, especially from the main actress. The movie tries to paint a picture of hard-boiled military-like robbers with no remorse at all and a female investigator who has completely lost it with problems of the past but at the same time acts completely rational. It does not succeed very well.The bluish-cast photo style does not seem fresh anymore, and it is not even done well in this picture. Only a very few scenes actually look good. Also, the sound is quite weird and it sounds like a lot of the actual dialogue is recorded afterward.The main quality of this movie is Stefan Sauk, though not making a convincing portrait of a SWAT-team leader, has some really funny lines. Also, the music is quite well.

Quite typical for swedish movies of this type. Strange that the acting was soooo bad, these actors usually give a good show. The casting was poorly done, it made you expect something (I won't tell you what). The lead character was awful... I don't know where they find her. Anyway, stay away from this and go see "Den Tredje Vågen" instead, this is swedish action in is prime.

It feels like swedish movies are trying to become more american and I just don´t get it. In this movie the performance of some of the actors is horrible and the script is nothing special. Don´t waste your time!