Betrayal - Zwischen den Fronten

Drenthe is one of the 12 Dutch states. And it's a place where the people look out for each other. There isn't much happening daily. But what Peter Nillesen and his crew did with Betrayal is something extraordinary. Just with a budget of 300.000 euros, all in gifts and sponsorships from municipalities and the province Drenthe.

And if you look at the movie with that in mind you can only be surprised with what they made. This isn't a big budget or Hollywood style film. Betrayal is made by volunteers. Something extraordinary.

Peter Nillesen plays the role of Ludwig Mengelberg a Wehrmacht officer who has seen it all. Death, destruction, the craziness of the Nazis and so on. On one day he gets an assignment to go to The Netherlands. A mission he will never forget. And it's Peter who carries this film. He plays the character so well that in your mind you believe that he's actually there.

The role of Maarten Schoonma played by Dirk Gunther Mohr is well executed. The obsessed SS officer does exactly what you expect from one in the Schutzstaffel. You really hate the man. Allard Geerlings plays the role of Lieutenant de Vries. An officer of the Prinses Irene Brigade. He has an authority aura that you respect immediately.

Betrayal zooms in on Operation Amherst. The operation who prepared the way for the 1st Canadian armed forces. Polish, Dutch, and Canadian men gave there lives to liberate the north. It's something that other films doesn't show. A welcome filmed piece of history.

The film is as I said made and played by volunteers. Many of the didn't had any acting experiences. And this fact is something that you can't forget seeing this wonderfully put together piece of film.

This is clearly a small budget movie. It's great with how little money it was filmed, but the acting is very bad. The scenes are also not correct, so you quickly drop out of the film. This is a pity because the message of the film is beautiful.

You can see that the battle scenes were filmed with reenactors. The uniforms are good, but combat scenes are poorly executed. Perhaps a low-budget film without combat scenes would have been better. Too bad, but maybe next time a better film from this production company. I look forward to other reviews on this movie, I personally think the film is poorly acted and the storyline is not clear enough.

This film was made with a very low budget, yet they came so far in making it a good movie.

Netflix, Cinema and even Dvd's on webshops they accomplished it all, for a low budget movie that is really something!

A great movie with good detailed and historical correct uniforms, they really made a good quality movie for the budget they had.

The movie started to pull me in, it's really a fun movie to watch. I spoke with alot of the actors they are really nice and hard working people who try to make the best of what they had with their budget.

I would say it's worth your time to watch this movie.

And give them your support by dropping a good rating!

I was very curious about Betrayal (Grenzeloos Verraad). In the cinema I saw some people from the cast and crew for a meet and greet and they have explained how much budget they had to make this movie. This movie is also the first movie who tells the story of Operation Amherst. (Important history to know)

After watching the movie I was surprised about the result. The camerawork is really bringing you into te story and the music is bringing the tension you are feeling. I have seen good work from the actors.

Specially from Ludwig (Peter Nilessen) and Martin (Dirk Gunther Mohr). The acting and the tension between the two was phenomenal. A movie to watch!

I enjoyed watching this movie although I did needed some time get into it. From the beginning it becomes very clear that this movie was made with a low budget (300k Euro). Most of the soldiers in it are re-enactors without any acting experience probably wearing their own uniforms. The firefights look a bit clumsy and confusing and the acting of some of the actors (especially Peter Nilessen) is very poor. But..... once you have set aside all this it becomes a nice movie where people really made an effort to portray things in the right way. The uniforms and weapons are history locally accurate to a large extend. And the movie highlights a very unknown military operation that had a big impact on the war in the North East of the Netherlands.

Dutch cinema has always struggled to make good WW2 movies since "Soldier of orange". "The resistance banker" and "Black Book" are just 2 of many examples of horrendously bad Dutch WW2 movies which had a much bigger budget. So in that light this movie was not bad at all. Don't expect Oscar material but a nice viewing experience nonetheless.