CRIME DRAMA based on true stories. “The Quiet Ones.” / “24 Days.” / “Karla.”

“The Quiet Ones” (2024, Hulu) Danish heist film. Based on true events, the film follows a diverse team executing a major 2008 bank heist in Denmark. 


       Background: The 2008 heist in Glostrup is known as the largest and most spectacular robbery in Danish history. On August 10, 2008, an international gang targeted the cash-handling facility of Dansk Værdihåndtering (Danish Value Handling) in a suburb of Copenhagen. The gang made off with approximately 62 million Danish kroner (approx. $10.5 million). Most of the money was never recovered; only about 3-4 million kroner was eventually found buried in a garden in Odense.

       Director Frederik Louis Hviid did away with Hollywood-styled high octane action by focusing on the suspects’ pre-robbery planning, anchored on a boxer named Kasper. 

       So if you are expecting a heist thriller, sorry to disappoint you. Given the hugeness of the premise, this feels like a yawn. 🎥💻📽


“24 Days” (2014, Plex) French crime drama. The true story of the 2006 kidnapping and torture of Ilan Halimi by the "Gang of Barbarians" in Paris. 



       Story: Ilan Halimi was a 23-year old Frenchman of Moroccan Jewish ancestry. He was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in France in 2006 by a group calling themselves the Gang of Barbarians. The kidnappers, believing that all Jews are rich, repeatedly contacted the victim's modestly placed family demanding very large sums of money. Halimi was held captive and tortured for three weeks, and died of his injuries. The case drew national and international attention as an example of antisemitism in France.

       I am not saying that this true crime movie is badly-done. In fact, it is well-acted. The problem is, despite the strong premise, it lacked dramatic intensity. Director Alexandre Arcady didn’t make an effort beyond what the police blotter seemed to say. 🎥💻📽


“Karla” (2006, Fawesome) psychological thriller, based on the crimes of Canadian serial killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. 


       Paul Bernardo (b. 1964), is a Canadian serial rapist and murderer dubbed the Scarborough Rapist and Schoolgirl Killer. He initially committed a series of rapes in Scarborough, Ontario, a district of Toronto, between 1986 and 1990, before meeting (and married) Karla Homolka (b. 1970), with whom he committed rape leading to the death of her sister Tammy, followed by two murders in 1991 and 1992. Karla acted as an accomplice to her husband, taking active part in the rapes and murders of at least two girls and the rape/death of Tammy.

       What could have been a creepy, disturbing cinematic reading of a brutal true-to-life crime turned out to be a yawny, sophomore Film-school exercise. Marred by soapy genre cliches and weak production values, these only blurred or “confused” the depiction of Karla Homolka. Laura Prepon as Karla and Mischa Collins as Paul Bernardo are either off-sync or over-acting. 

       Overall, the script by Manette Rosen and Michael D. Sellers is an unimaginative run-through that director Joel Bender failed to fix; he turned it into a sort of Lifetime project failure. 🎭👎🎬


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