Gold Run

9 April 1940. German troops enter Oslo and they are after three things: the king, the government and the gold. There are fifty five tonnes of gold in the vault of the Norwegian central bank. Fredrik Haslund is an official in the labour party; he is asked to run the operation. He has no experience, no military training and no regular unit under him. They pack the gold into crates and start moving it north by lorry. Railways, fishing boats and volunteers are used along the way. His sister Nini is in it too. The Germans are behind them and the air attacks continue. Hallvard Bræin directs. Jon Øigarden plays Fredrik and Ida Elise Broch plays Nini; Sven Nordin is in the cast. It is a Norwegian production. The events are real; the removal of Norway's gold reserve happened in the first days of the war and the operation was carried out largely by civilians. Nordahl Grieg, who appears in the film, was a real person; he was a poet and had fought in the Spanish Civil War. It was announced as the first Norwegian film made for a streaming platform. Its register is adventure rather than period drama; the film builds its tension through speed rather than gravity. The landscape and the period design are its strong side. Its limit is approach; the historical event is simplified and the characters drawn as types. Who it is for: viewers who like wartime adventure and Scandinavian productions. Who it is not for: the history is simplified, the characters thin, and the tension bound to a shape.