Tribeca ’03: Catch That Girl! (review)

It’s a nonstop action movie for kids, featuring an appealing gang of misfits led by the spunkiest 13-year-old girl since Pippi Longstocking, so of course it’s slated for a Hollywood remake. I’m glad I had the chance to see the Danish original before it gets watered down and prettied up and made boring and bland. Ida (Julie Zangenberg) hatches a plot to rob a bank in order to pay for an operation her dad desperately needs — it’s a hoary cliché played for laughs as well as for tugs on the heartstrings, and it works delightfully well. Like Die Hard for tweens, there’s an office building to be tackled, security systems to be thwarted, and grownups to be fooled. It’s all good fun.