22 July Review: 5 Ups & 4 Downs

2. It's A Pretty Generic Courtroom Drama At Times

Once the shootings themselves have taken place, the movie settles down to become a far more familiar courtroom drama, as Breivik prepares his defence, Breivik's lawyer considers the moral implications of defending such an abhorrent human being (something he's duty-bound to do), and the victims ready themselves emotionally to take the stand.

It's during the back-half of the film in particular that it starts to evoke the feel of a rather workmanlike TV movie of the week, competently assembled at all times but lacking much verve or inspiration as written or directed.

Given Greengrass' acclaimed prior docu-dramas, it's a bit of a shame that, outside of the visceral attack sequence itself, this feels like it could've basically been assembled by any old hack filmmaker.