Empire by Ian Freer

Shorta is a Molotov cocktail of a movie. For co-directors Ølholm and Hviid, it’s a Hollywood calling card. For the rest of us, it’s a tense actioner, anchored by powerful performances from its leads, who add layers to good cop/bad cop clichés.

Original-Cin by Liam Lacey

As effective as Enforcement is on a visceral level, it comes up short in any deeper reflection on the social crisis of its premise.

Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen

The film is both a lurid urban thriller and an earnest parable about (almost literally) walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.

Variety by Peter Debruge

A thriller that’s both a relentless adrenaline rush and a social-issue Rorschach test for all who watch it.

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

The film gives no reason for optimism in the urban warfare it portrays, but its heart, head and sharp eye are in exactly the right place.

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

Enforcement, released as “Shorta” (Arabic slang for “cops”) in Europe, is a solid is slow-moving police actioner that reminds us that no matter the continent, police work is the same dangerous game. And that the world over, that “game” has entirely too many of the wrong sorts of people signing up.

The Guardian by Cath Clarke

There are plenty of heart-pumping moments, plus a fair few false notes, a couple of implausible coincidences and some exposition-y dialogue spelling out the film’s message, which is about how the two sides see each other.

Los Angeles Times by Katie Walsh

The brawny Enforcement doesn’t shy away from brutal action, but the film is more in line with recent police thrillers like Deon Taylor’s “Black and Blue,” and Ladj Ly’s “Les Misérables,” which fuse overt sociopolitical commentary with genre thrills.

CineVue by Matthew Anderson

Trouble lurks around every corner, and the narrative does keep us guessing, but this limits any sincere indictment of the apparently irresolvable us-and-them conflict. An arresting, often edge-of-your-seat action film, then, but not the enduring La Haine-inspired inspection of societal ills that it could have been.

The Observer (UK) by Wendy Ide

While Shorta is certainly a propulsive piece of action cinema, which makes effective use of its acid yellow, cement grey and burnt umber palette and warren-of-concrete location, there’s a crudely schematic quality to the writing.

RogerEbert.com by Simon Abrams

And when the movie’s over, nothing is resolved that the filmmakers didn’t side-step or reduce to a few unconvincing symbols of hope for a more equitable future. You might like Enforcement if that’s a line you already want to buy; there’s otherwise not much here to change your mind.