Number 24

The director crafts a mostly patriotic picture of a man solely dedicated to duty. It’s an uncompromising approach that often makes for a stirring watch even through a narrow lens.

The film is tense in the best way.

A modest triumph, low-keyed but consistently effective.

Based on the real-life story of Norwegian hero Gunnar Sønsteby, director John Andreas Andersen delivers a gripping, often violent thriller that highlights the best and worst of humankind.

This biopic about Gunnar Sønsteby, the most highly decorated citizen in Norway, explores the moral grey areas during war under brutal invading forces. Switching between the past and the present, the film sensitively contrasts justice and necessity.

The sticky morals of this type of warfare are folded in, in a way that adds much substance to an otherwise middle-of-the-road espionage thriller.

As it presents the effort of one man to retain his value system and apply it to the greater good, it finds lots of ways to illustrate how the battle is always bigger, even if the people fighting it are not larger than life.

Ventures into the past while inevitably and in this case incidentally reflecting on troubling moral alongside military implications - and no less so in the case of Norway's past and conflicted, simultaneous battle of soil and soul present moment in time.

Honors Norway's greatest war hero.

[Give] Number 24 a watch for that third act, but if it’s too triggering, it’s fine to skip it.