While talking to decorated Norwegian resistance fighter Gunnar Sønsteby (Erik Hivju), teenager Anne Solheim (Flo Fagerli) asks why he did not pursue more non-violent methods to resist the Nazi occupiers of the Scandinavian country during World War II.  As a practicing Catholic, I empathize with her question.  I am also a student of history, and admittedly part of what originally excited me about the past was studying warfare.  My Faith has taught me that not every act of defiance needs to be destructive.  Having said all this, one can look at the young woman’s question as impertinent.  She is able to make such inquiries thanks to the risks that many like Gunnar took in trying to defeat global fascism during the late 1930s and into the 1940s.  There is a time and place for everything, or so the book of Ecclesiastes tells us.  In many respects, that is the theme of Nr. 24 (2024), and I am eager to tell you about it.

Years after Gunnar was known as Nr. 24, he is asked to speak to a group of teenagers of which Anne is a part.  He is there despite an opening scrawl telling us that there is a drawer inside his head that contains his actions between 1940 and 1945 that he keeps locked and never opens.  Still, he comes to talk about those events, which he begins by relating to them about how he was once young (Sjur Vatne Brean) like them.  We first meet his more youthful self in 1937 as he is out skiing, as the Norwegians do, with his best friend from childhood, Karl Solheim (Jakob Maanum Trulsen).  Once they stop for a break, Gunnar looks unbelievingly at a newspaper detailing book burning in Nazi Germany.  Karl dismisses the unrest, highlighting that they are merely going after communists.  Gunnar responds by highlighting the fact that politics should not matter, that anyone should be able to speak their mind as they see fit.  Before it can turn into an argument, they carry on with their day and we jump ahead to 1940, when those same Nazis invade Norway.  Though some Norwegians try to carry on with business as usual, Gunnar is not one of them.  His disapproval is noticed early on and he is recruited by the nascent resistance attempting to take on the German army.  Their battles end in utter defeat, and they are forced to adopt new tactics.  At this point, he is given the option to travel to the United Kingdom in order to receive more training in the kind of warfare in which they will be engaging.  He refuses, opting to stay in his native land.  His first few acts are mainly of the sabotage variety, including blowing up a building housing records of Norwegians being drafted for service with the Nazis.  The more success he has, the more the occupiers clamp down on dissent.  Mainly, this includes mass arrests, but nobody positively identifies him.  Amidst the ongoing search, he visits his parents to tell them that he is involved in work that might lead to them being questioned.  To their credit, they are accepting of the situation, and it is also clear that they may never see him again.  After a particularly close brush with being caught, Gunnar finally relents and goes to Scotland to get the needed training.  Before that can start, he is subjected to questioning as to how he could have evaded capture for so long.  The whole time he is desirous of getting back as soon as possible.  Now that he has extra knowledge, he is eager to play a bigger role in taking on the Nazis.  This involves meeting with a couple of resistance members and blowing up a German munitions factory.  They also carry out another bombing, this time with the help of two long-time associates, among them the gregarious Edvard Tallaksen (Philip Helgar).  With the number of unchecked attacks they are doing, Gunnar is again called back to England, this time to be congratulated by Haakon VII (Kristian Halken), the king of Norway in exile.  While Gunnar is away, he learns that Edvard and another had been lured into an ambush, leading to Edvard’s capture.  Instead of being interrogated, Edvard hangs himself.  It is a terrible price that Gunnar is paying for his dream of a free Norway.  It is about to get bloodier, too, once the Norwegian resistance makes a list of Nazis and Norwegian collaborators that they plan to target for assassination.  They start small, but the real prize is Karl Mathinsen (Per Kjerstad), the Norwegian commander of the collaborator forces who is also responsible for rounding up the country’s Jewish population and sending them to concentration camps.  However, it gets personal when the resistance intercepts a letter late in the war from Karl to the Gestapo telling them that he can positively confirm Gunnar’s identity.  Gunnar is ordered to take care of the problem, and he sends two assassins to murder Karl while Gunnar pursues a different mission.  Not too long thereafter, the end of the war finally comes.  He helps with the settlement afterwards, but his main concern becomes those with trauma associated with the conflict.  It is part of the reason he speaks to the students as an elderly gentleman.  As the film comes to a close, we see what happens to some of the people we have seen throughout the proceedings alongside whom he fought.

Please forgive me if I am not more precise with my naming of names of Gunnar’s comrades in Nr. 24.  Actually, that is a bit repetitive since the title refers to his codename during the war.  Had they all received such designations, it might have made it easier for me to identify them.  As it is, they are of those difficult to pronounce, at least for English speakers, Norwegian names.  Then again, they probably think the same of our words.  At any rate, my synopsis was a little shorter because I included in the introduction some of what happens.  This mainly pertains to the conversation between Anne and Gunnar.  If you noted Anne’s last name, you will understand why this is significant.  Anne is Karl’s great grandniece, and she interested in what happened to him.  During the forum, Gunnar feigns not knowing, though the flashback makes it clear that he is aware.  The exchange between Anne and Gunnar is part of a broader discussion about the resistance going after fellow Norwegians.  He insists that they targeted some of the worst people imaginable regardless if they were fellow countrymen.  She remains unconvinced, and to a certain degree, I cannot blame her.  You do not have to be a Christian to be sad over the death of so many people no matter what side they fight for in a conflict.  God does not rejoice over the death of anyone regardless of what extremist evangelicals might tell you.  You might ask yourself how I can pretend to know the mind of God better than they do.  My response is that I am no closer to God than anyone else.  However, I do know that 1 John 4:8 says that “God is love.”  He wants us to be with Him in Heaven, and if one dies before they can repent, that does not make Him happy.  Though this is outside of Gunnar’s thinking, at least in terms of what we see in the movie, it is evident that he also does not take any pleasure in what he is doing.  The ultimate question is, then, why do it?  For him, it is about freedom and peace.  These are important, though a Christian’s true freedom is found in God in every circumstance.  At the same time, this does not mean we should stand by and let tyranny win.  What I would encourage anyone to do in a situation like Gunnar’s is to pray about how God wants you to respond.  Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all will be made clear.

What is also clear is that World War II was difficult for Nr. 24, though that should not be surprising.  What did surprise me was Anne’s questioning, and his initial response.  It is natural to want to forget painful memories, though this film shows that facing them can be healing.  For that reason, it gets my recommendation.