Editor’s Word: This evaluate was initially printed throughout the 2024 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. Magnet releases “The Quiet Ones” in theaters on February 21, 2025.
There are enjoyable heist films and there are critical heist films, and Frederik Louis Hviid’s skeletal however gripping “The Quiet Ones” — primarily based on the largest Danish theft ever dedicated — instantly and unambiguously identifies itself because the latter. It begins in Sweden in 2006, the place we journey together with two safety guards inside an armored truck as they make an early morning money supply. She’s a battle-tested veteran who’s seen all of it, he’s a rookie with a brand new little one at residence, and each of them will probably be shot to dying inside minutes when the latter tries to flee the gang of militarized thieves who ambush their car.
These criminals usually are not fucking round, and after they resurface in Copenhagen two years later with a watch in the direction of recruiting a neighborhood boxer for a large rating, we are able to’t assist however marvel if Kasper (Gustav Giese, chiseled and defaced like a public statue, and solely barely extra expressive) is getting in over his head. He’s a bruiser to make sure, but in addition a loving household man who simply needs to make his spouse and their younger daughter proud. He can’t bear the considered being a failure, and whereas there’s no cause to suppose he may not succeed within the ring, he doesn’t have the persistence to punch his manner up the ranks. “When am I gonna be champ?,” he asks his coach. “Begin by profitable your first battle,” the coach replies.
The deep scars on Kasper’s face recommend that he’s already suffered a number of losses of 1 variety or one other in his life, and he radiates a decency that makes all of it too simple for us to hope that he comes out on prime, whatever the shortcut he takes to get there. So when his shady jeweler of a brother-in-law connects him to the mastermind of the Sweden job (a greasy and glowering Reda Ketab as Slimani, who layers the dead-eyed dangerousness of a profession prison with an additional pinch of sadism simply to maintain us on our toes), our emotions are naturally conflicted. We’re invested in Kasper however not a lot for his terrifying killer of a brand new boss, and that discrepancy solely grows extra excessive after the unnecessary scene by which Slimani abuses his girlfriend — a telling misstep in a movie that struggles to steadiness its fixed potential for violence with the well-oiled professionalism of its thieves.
The not-so-complicated matrix of our sympathies is made a hair extra complicated by the glancing introduction of a blonde safety guard named Maria (Amanda Collin), who Anders Frithiof August’s script — decided to be as ruthlessly environment friendly as attainable — particulars with all the love of a typo. All we find out about Maria is that she cares about her job, she performs by the principles, and she or he’ll inevitably cross paths with Slimani’s gang on the fateful night time after they ram a bulldozer into the depot the place she works.
Evidently, “The Quiet Ones” — its title alluding to the demeanor of its protagonist, in addition to to the unmarked payments he’s attempting to steal — is extra fascinated with course of than character element. Emulating the terseness of a Jules Dassin heist thriller whereas largely eschewing the coolness that tends to return with it, Hviid drills into the nitty-gritty particulars of the theft till any sense of ethical judgment has seeped out of the equation. It’s unclear if Kasper is made to really feel extra determined by the looming risk of the worldwide monetary disaster (although it hovers over the film with the obviousness of an imminent hurricane), however this isn’t a criminal offense story a few good man who’s compelled to make dangerous selections a lot because it’s a veiled tragedy in regards to the want for belonging.
Everybody simply needs to really feel like they’ve discovered their place on the earth, and whereas there’s nothing notably exceptional about Slimani’s grasp plan (they’re going to dam the roads with rubbish vehicles, pack the money into stolen Audis, and spike the roads behind them as they peel away from the scene), “The Quiet Ones” mines a palpable sense of non-public velocity from the sense of goal that their Slimani’s recruits convey to their numerous roles. Like cogs slotting right into a crude machine, these males are merely — and eagerly — fulfilling their goal, which is sufficient of its personal reward that the cash nearly begins to appear like a method to an finish. That won’t sq. with Kasper’s obsession with breaking the file for Denmark’s greatest heist, however I suppose it’s laborious to shake freed from a champion’s mentality, least of all in a world that’s conditioned folks to win at any price.
Shot in numerous shades of darkness and smoothed into pure adrenaline with the assistance of Martin Dirkov’s glassy rating, “The Quiet Ones” is pointedly absent the prison romance that always abets different films prefer it. The heist itself makes for an interesting setpiece (how may it not?), however Hviid persistently emphasizes the chilly nervousness of pulling it off — an nervousness he refuses to melt with compelled camaraderie or exaggerate with unexpected twists. There’s a blunt actuality to the duty at hand, and it all the time returns our consideration to the unhappy indisputable fact that Kasper and co. try to steal a way of accomplishment that they’ll by no means be capable to maintain.
In a movie much less afraid to entry the humanity of its characters, which may have been sufficient to make the wildly under-written Maria — so devoted to the sluggish grind of her work — really feel like a extra completely efficient foil to the robbers who attempt to leapfrog their solution to success. However despite its teflon sheen, “The Quiet Ones” is even-handed sufficient to acknowledge a residual despair in the truth that Maria dangers her life for a paycheck and a pat on the again. Positive, that’s one other manner of claiming that she’s doing her job, however it could not appear to be reward sufficient when the economic system begins to break down round her. By the point this hard-nosed style workout routines arrives at its ambivalent closing scene, whether or not or not the criminals get away with stealing a number of million Krone feels all however irrelevant to a world by which actual achievement is so laborious to maintain.
Grade: C+
“The Quiet Ones” premiered on the 2024 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. Magnet releases the movie Friday, February 2025.
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