If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I saw the real news footage at the time this all happened and i can tell you that this movie in my opinion is a waste of time. A complete senseless drama with over dramatized acting. One word about this movie that keeps coming to mind is STUPID. To sum up this version of the story as it is portrayed in this movie: think of Days of our lives on steroids, and that's it. That's what this is. What i still can not believe is that 100 LA cops and not a single one can or even thought of shooting at the head or legs till the very end. Even then our swat team hero who was late ("I'm 10 min out"-"There in 2 min"-"I'm on the scene") and went on about being a hero and how he came to be a hero and what it's like to be a hero didn't really do much to the last single bank robber who was down to his handgun because his AK-47 got jammed. Another word just come to mind: PATHETIC. I hate this movie.

It tells the story of the infamous 1997 North Hollywood shootout, where two bank robbers, wearing body armour and carrying AK-47s unleashed an unprecedented wave of gunfire at dozens of LAPD officers as they tried to make their getaway.The incredible footage of this incident, broadcast live from TV news helicopters is unlike anything you've seen before. It's fascinated me for years, seeing such events, straight out of Michael Mann's Heat, played out for real. So I was looking forward to this one but it was a disappointment and makes me wonder if the story could ever be done justice in a fictional movie. In the hands of director Yves Simoneau it's little more than a bloodier version of the countless Discovery and History channel reconstruction documentaries of the incident. Indeed the film's documentary-style approach, complete with talking heads, just reminds viewers of the fact that it's been done better previously. Instead of real people recounting the events we have mediocre actors. Instead of hard facts we have small inaccuracies and timelines altered for (understandable) dramatic purposes. Instead of the horrifying real footage we have poorly-edited action sequences.I'd recommend watching one of those aforementioned TV documentaries, or the raw footage on YouTube, to get a better idea of what happened that day. That said, the drama inherent in the story means 44 Minutes can't help but be a moderately exciting film.

This is one of the most awesome movies I have ever seen. I loved it. My only problem with it was that it was way too biased in the favor of the police, painting the criminals as stupid robots, which they weren't. The movie makers really should have given the robbers, who are in essence the real stars of the movie, more detailed personalities. Other than that, it was an awesome action flick. Although the interviews were a bit annoying, and I'd rather they'd at least been interviews with those actually present at the gunfight, instead of the actors.All in all, I'd recommend it to anyone, pro-cop or anti-cop. 44 Minutes is a great movie, and I feel that it's second only to the movie "Heat".

This movie was based on actual fact? I sincerely hope not!We get to see what appears to be numerous armed cops empty an equal amount of guns at 2 guys who only got armored torso's. That's a great idea; aim for the armor!...excuse me, but how about those big fat unmissable heads or their legs for crying out loud. Or were there invisible tanks protecting them? were they from Crypton?Did i miss something here?This movie started out decent enough but after 20 minutes of shoot-out it really takes a turn to boringlane.And that documentary style didn't work for me either, but thats just something one finds likable or not.Highly unbelievable stuff which makes it hard to see it through 'til the end.3/10 for the fine editing.