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RHD; Robbery Homicide Division. We're the best of the best and we get all the high profile cases. LA Confidential, Al Pachino in Heat, Joe Friday and all that. The only difference is that those guys don't have to juggle 75 cases all at once. Me, I've gotta prioritise and... Back in 1995, my priority was them. We had a name for 'em. We call the the High Incident Bandits. Chatsworth, two years prior; these guys decided to make a... early withdrawal. They kill a guard; they executed 'em; ambushed him; took his head off with an AK-47. That kind of firepower at a bank job is unheard of. These guys were an anomaly. Six months later, another armoured car then two more banks. Takeover style; the most dangerous kind. They uh... got away with over $2 million. I guess they wanted to live the good life and they wanted it pretty fast instead of getting a job like the rest of us. Anyway, they disappeared into the wind one day but I knew they'd be back.
~ Detective Frank McGregor about Philips and Mătăsăreanu.

Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, together known as the High Incident Bandits (so called for their use of heavy weaponry in their bank robberies), are the main antagonists of the film 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out, which was based on the real shootout of the same name.

They are two of the most infamous criminals in American history; violent bank robbers who attempted to pull a bank robbery before they were confronted by LAPD officers and engaged in a 44 minute shootout where dozens of cops and civilians were critically injured.

Larry Philips Jr was played by Andrew Bryniarski (who also played Zangief in Street Fighter: The Movie and Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake duology), while Emil Mătăsăreanu was played by Oleg Taktarov.

Biography[]

Past[]

Larry Philips Jr. met Emil Mătăsăreanu at a Gold's Gym in Venice, Los Angeles in 1989 and decided to rob armored cars together. As told by Detective Frank McGregor, the High Incident Bandits, murdered one security guard years before the Shootout and were jailed for an unrelated crime but were quickly let go and even had their weapons returned to them as they claimed that it was to help pay their legal fees.

North Hollywood Shootout[]

On the early morning of February 28 1997, Larry Phillips and Emil Mătăsăreanu met in their safe-house and pack their bags with their Norinco Type 56 assault rifles and armor piercing bullets in the early morning of February 28, 1997. They also dress in homemade bulletproof vests that are designed to protect them from standard calibre bullets. They get into their car and drive straight to the North Hollywood branch of the Bank of America where they wait patiently in their car with Mătăsăreanu checking his watch and timing the arrival of an armoured car. However, the armoured car they are expecting to arrive drives past the bank due to a reschedule, upsetting them both. They change their motive and decide to go into the bank and take the money themselves even though it isn't part of the initial plan. They each take three pills to calm their nerves before entering. Phillips Jr. parks the car in front of the bank and they both proceed to commit a robbery. However, from afar and before they enter the bank, an LAPD squad car drives past the bank and officers see the robbers going inside. They immediately call for backup that a possible robbery is in progress and a witness walking her dog also calls for help.

As they get in, Philips Jr. fires his assault rifle bullets into the ceiling and tells everyone in the bank to get down. Mătăsăreanu starts shooting at the walls and breaking picture portraits before they break into the room where the vault is located and demand the teller to open the vault. Phillips covers the room while his partner dealt with the rest. However, he is being hesitant, infuriating Mătăsăreanu who threatens to shoot him as the teller stuffs all of the money in the bag as he is told and, when Mătăsăreanu looks away for a moment, he stuffs a special stash of money designed to explode if it passes sensors outside the bank. Asking if there is any more money, the teller plays along and says that they don't have much money left because of recent robberies. There is one more safe the robbers need to open, but no employee of the bank is able to open it as only armored car guards have access to the safe combination and attempts by Mătăsăreanu to blast open the safe fail due to it being bulletproof. Phillips loses his patience and tells Mătăsăreanu that the cops have arrived and surrounded the building. Before heading outside, they order the people into the bank into the vault, including the teller. They both step outside and they are quickly told to surrender and drop their weapons, but Phillips starts to shoot at the police and Mătăsăreanu quickly follows. One of them shoots the woman that saw them go into the bank earlier and some of their bullets go even as far as a dentist across from the bank. The bank robbers' bullets also obliterate a keysmith near the bank. The police respond back by firing their guns back at them, but thanks to both the distance between the combatants and the criminals' armor, the bullets fail. When Phillips and Mătăsăreanu take a second to reload, Officer Henry Jones risks his life to save his colleagues. But Phillips Jr. sees him running and takes two shots at Henry which strike his arm and leg. After covering near a tree, Henry take a couple of shots at the robbers who fire back but neither are able to hit him. The robbers continue firing for a few more minutes, hitting another pedestrian through a wall before walking back into the bank to both reload and restrategize.

They decide to hatch a plan to escape from the scene by using their guns to cause chaos in the area and prevent the cops from catching up to them. Mătăsăreanu says if they separate, he will see Phillips Jr. at the safe-house but Phillips Jr. tells his partner he would rather die than go to jail again, both having previously been imprisoned 4 years prior. The bank hostages hear them say this as the friends agree before exiting the bank. The robbers step out of the bank and start shooting again and try to shoot at a police car driven by Detective Frank McGregor going for assistance to help Henry. By now, officers have pulled out their shotguns while some continue using their pistols. As they continue shooting at the police, Mătăsăreanu's duffel bag starts to produce purple smoke from the money the teller had snuck inside earlier. This frustrates him and he goes back into the bank and attempts to murder the teller, but he closes the vault door with all the hostages before he can. Meanwhile, Phillips Jr. loses his balance after bullets push him down with force but he does not give up shooting at the police. He goes to the car and switches to using an HK-91 which has a much higher rate of fire, taunting the police in the process. He starts shooting at a news chopper that pulls away, hoping to bring down casualties, but fails. Mătăsăreanu walks out of the bank and then goes behind the wheel of the car. Phillips Jr. tells him to start driving while he kills the cops. The robbers begin leaving the area, with Phillips Jr. injuring more cops along the way. Mătăsăreanu urges him to get in the car but he wants to continue shooting the police.

Phillips Jr. hides behind a semitrailer and attempts to fire back when his assault rifle starts to jam. He cannot remove the magazine from the gun so he continues shooting using his sidearm. Without his powerful rifle, the police have the upper hand by shooting him in the knee. Surrounded and not willing to spend the rest of his life behind bars, Philips Jr. aims at Detective Frank McGregor like he is about to shoot McGregor but instead commits suicide with McGregor simultaneously shooting him. Mătăsăreanu sees his fallen partner on the ground, and attempts to flee in the car. With the tires blown out though, he tries his hand at stealing another car. After two unsuccessful attempts, he sees a truck coming in his direction and shoots at the driver. He misses him and the driver flees before he can get hurt, switching off his truck before escaping.

Mătăsăreanu attempts to drive the truck away but he can't since he is unfamiliar with car kill-switches and is forced to take cover and do battle once again as the SWAT Team arrive. Due to wielding AR-15s, the SWAT Team are more than a match for him and defeat Mătăsăreanu when Donnie Anderson shoots him in the foot and the rest of the officers shoot his legs out. Outgunned and bleeding, Mătăsăreanu surrenders and is handcuffed but quickly dies from blood-loss caused by the severing of his femoral artery in his left leg long before ambulances can arrive. Despite their heavy firepower and armor that made them nearly untouchable, the "High Incident Bandits" were the only people killed in the shoot-out.

Personality[]

Larry Phillips Jr. & Emil Mătăsăreanu were extremely violent and psychopathic robbers who had an intense hatred for police and were willing to kill in order to escape. They were exceedingly callous and didn't care about hurting innocent people if it helped them to escape. Philips was also shown to be terrified by the idea of going to jail to the point of stating "I'd rather die than go to jail for the rest of my life" with him later making good on these promises.

Arsenal[]

  • Norinco Type-56 S: The High Incident Bandits primarily wielded these semi-automatic Chinese copies of the AK rifles, modifed to fire full-auto and fitted with drum magazines. A total of three were wielded during the shootout.
  • HK-91: Philips briefly used an HK-91 semi-automatic rifle against police after being knocked over.
  • Beretta 92FS Inox: Philips wielded this silver pistol after his second Norinco Type-56 S jammed. It was with this weapon that he ultimately killed himself.
  • Bushmaster XM-15 E2S Dissipator: Mătăsăreanu used this illegally modfied AR-15-style rifle during his last stand, also equiped with a drum magazine.

Quotes[]

Let's go.
~ Larry Phillips Jr's first words in the movie after he and Emil Mătăsăreanu had finished preparing for thier robbery.
(Philips): Hey, ya see that? A Porsche 9-11? I love those.
(Mătăsăreanu): I hate the Germans.
(Philips): You're from Romania. That practically makes you a German.
(Mătăsăreanu): I am an American and I like Corvettes and Mustangs.
~ Emil Mătăsăreanu's first words in the movie after Philips pointed out and admired a Porsche 9-11.
(Philips): Here we go.
(Mătăsăreanu): Huh? Where's he going?
(Philips): That's not our guy.
(Mătăsăreanu): S**t. I'm so done with this s**t man.
(Philips): Change of plans. We do the bank.
(Mătăsăreanu): Okay, I'm with you. Let's do the bank.
~ Philips and Mătăsăreanu having to change thier plans due to the armored car not making a drop.
C'mon! C'mon! C'mon!
~ Larry Philips when trying to clear his jammed Norinco Type-56 and his last words before his death.
Larry! No! I tells him. I tells him get in the car! I tells him.
~ Emil Mătăsăreanu upon seeing Larry's dead body.
Ah, s**t!
~ Emil Mătăsăreanu when being unmasked by SWAT and his last words.

Trivia[]

  • Although Emil Mătăsăreanu was Romanian, Oleg Taktarov is Russian.
  • The scenes of Philips and Mătăsăreanu re-entering the bank to re-arm as well as Mătăsăreanu re-entering the bank and trying to murder the employees were completely invented for the movie. In real-life, they stayed outside the bank and kept shooting until they made their escape.
    • This was changed to establish the idea of there being three bank robbers (which was true to life) since that was why Mătăsăreanu bled to death before medics could arrive because they believed the area was still "hot" and refused to enter the supposedly unsafe area.
  • In real life, the arrest of Philips and Mătăsăreanu in 1993 was due to being in a stolen car whereas the movie implies it was for possessing an illegal assault rifle and doesn't even mention the car theft. The fact that they had illegal weapons in their possession was merely an addition to their charges.
    • Additionally, the movie only shows an illegal assault rifle being found whereas real police found no semi-automatic rifles, two handguns, more than 1,600 rounds of 7.62×39mm rifle ammunition, 1,200 rounds of 9×19mm Parabellum and .45 ACP handgun ammunition, radio scanners, smoke bombs, improvised explosive devices, body armor vests, and three different California license plates.
  • In real life, the High Incident Bandits mainly used Norinco Type 56 S semi-automatic rifles (a Chinese copy of the original AK-47 made for the U.S. civilian market) which were converted to full auto. In the movie, according to Internet Movie Firearms Database, they are seen using Romanian AIMS rifles (Philips' first rifle and Mătăsăreanu's Type 56) and a Hungarian AMMS rifle (Philips' third rifle), these models were most likely picked due to their simillarity to the real Type 56 S rifles used in the real incident.
  • In real life, Philips' HK-91 rifle was not converted to full auto.
  • While Larry Phillips Jr. committed suicide in the film, in real life, accounts vary of his actual fate as some sources say he may have tried to remove a bullet from his pistol using his teeth but ended up shooting himself instead.
    • The only footage that exists of his real death was from a helicopter and only shows him looking down at his gun seconds before his death.
  • For reasons unknown, the physical appearances of the robbers were swapped.
    • The fictionalized Larry Phillips Jr. has long hair as depicted in the movie, which is a feature of Mătăsăreanu's appearance in a mugshot.
    • It is a common misconception that Emil Mătăsăreanu had long hair during the time of the North Hollywood shootout, as one of the most famous photos of him came from his 1993 arrest mugshot, where he had long hair. However, he had short hair during North Hollywood, which was depicted in this film and is somewhat accurate.
  • The film depicts Mătăsăreanu being unable to drive the pick up truck as his getaway vehicle due to the driver disabling the fuel switch. In real-life, the truck was a manual transmission vehicle and Mătăsăreanu was not familiar with manual transmission driving, having only driven automatic transmission vehicles.
  • Scenes on the residential streets where the robbers tried escaping from the bank were filmed on the actual locations behind the real bank. However, the real location of the bank shootout was not used (since the North Hollywood branch of the Bank of America is still active to this day) so they used the exterior of a disused bank in a vacant shopping mall as a stand-in.
    • As a result, since all helicopter shots of the shootout are from the real event, a balcony that was present on the real bank continually appears and disappears when cutting between helicopter and staged footage.

References[]

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