44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out

Year: 2003

Grade: C-

Country: USA

Director: Simoneau

Review

tv movie about the infamous 1997 bank robbery in north hollywood. despite some good talent (ron livingston, michael madsen), this is a pretty bad movie. the subject is pretty interesting – two guys shoot hundreds of rounds at cops after a bank robbery goes wrong. it led to all sorts of talk about the weapons citizens can have and the weapons cops carry. it also left only the two robbers dead, which is remarkable. the film does a good job of showing it how it actually went down. if you compare the movements of the men on the youtube videos and the dramatic reenactments, you’ll see that they’re almost identical. unfortunately, the film is overly dramatized and stylized.