‘The Quiet Ones’ Review: Something Rotten in a Bank of Denmark

TIFF 2024: Frederik Louis Hviid’s Nordic heist movie is inspired by true events but lacks life

The Quiet Ones TIFF
"The Quiet Ones" (Credit: TIFF)

Master plans, regardless of one’s goals, require a full intensity of focus. Strong start, worthy objective, consistent follow-through: these are the qualities that ensure success, whether you’re making a great movie or, say, planning the biggest heist in Danish history.

Director Frederik Louis Hviid wants to give us that great movie about that huge heist. But like his hapless antiheroes, he’s made the fatal mistake of skipping a few essential steps.

It’s not that there isn’t a promising story here: He was inspired by a genuinely outrageous robbery in 2008. But inspiration alone won’t make anyone rich. And he and screenwriter Anders Frithiof August are simply missing too much: a proper blueprint, a satisfying payoff, even villains worth rooting for (or against, for that matter).

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