Kidnapping Freddy Heineken

Back in the early 1980s, Freddy Heineken, one of the richest men in the Netherlands and the head of Heineken International, was kidnapped along with his driver. Eventually, one of the largest ransoms ever was paid for his release. This film is about the kidnapping from the point of view of the crooks as well as its aftermath. This is interesting because you never see or hear anything about the police investigation--you only see the police when they are pouncing on the criminals at the end of the film. This all sounds very exciting....so why was I left so unaffected by the film? It is competently made but also rather ordinary.

On the positive side, the music is really, really nice. It provides a taut atmosphere and some of the action sequences were very nice. Oddly, the most exciting moment in the film occurs early in the movie--well before the actual kidnapping. In order to raise funds to pull off the kidnapping, the gang knocks over a bank--and it's exactly what I assumed the rest of the film would be like. However, sadly, after this the kidnapping seemed a bit anticlimactic and the film just seems to descend into a state of adequacy and nothing more. I think much of it is because I never felt particularly connected with the kidnappers and the tension just seemed to dissipate until the relatively exciting finale. The bottom line is that this would be a decent film to rent, but I couldn't see heading to the theaters for this one.

By the way, although the film is about Dutch kidnappers, everyone in the film was British! They sounded very British and although it was filmed in the Netherlands, it seemed more like a British gang there on holiday. The same story is told, incidentally, in a Dutch language film (The Heineken Kidnapping) starring Rutger Hauer as Freddy Heineken. In this British version, the filmmakers were able to secure the talents of Anthony Hopkins to play this beer baron.

'Kidnapping Freddy Heineken' is a story about a gang of Dutch crooks who decide that holding one of Holland's wealthiest businessmen for ransom will be a fast-track to easy money. It's hardly an inspiring premise, but the thing that makes it – slightly – better than the rest, is that it's based on a true story.

If you check out the literature online about it, you'll see that – surprise, surprise – liberties have been taken with the plot, but, from what I can gather, it is reasonably faithful – if you excuse the obvious parts which have been 'Hollywooded up' to speed the story up. The second plus point is Anthony Hopkins, who plays the titular millionaire. Always a good performance from 'Sir Tony.' Unfortunately, he's not in it as much as most of us would probably like. The main story focuses on the criminals, half of which are pretty bland, although one is played by Sam Worthington and another does have a family who features prominently, fleshing out his character a bit more. You may have to wait about forty-five minutes before we meet Hopkins though.

The film does its best to get us to empathise with the criminals and, for the most part, it sort of succeeds. We can see that they're the down-on-their-luck sorts who are only really after the money, but, at the end of the day, they are criminals, so – deep down – we're pretty much waiting for them to get their comeuppance.

If you're interested in the history of the case, it's probably best to read one of the books. Granted, I haven't, but I'm happy to settle for the big screen adaptation. Yeah, it passes the time – it's nothing special and I probably won't remember it in a year or so, but it kept me just about entertained enough while I was watching it.

I think the story could have been developed way more than what they did. In the first part of this movie, we get introduced to the main characters who - I have to say - have no blame at all in the low scoring of this movie: they are interesting, each one different from one another, with different dynamics going on. Somewhere along the way though, the director or the Writers decided that they needed to be quicker. That is where you can clearly sense how they push a Fast Forward button and every single development present in the first part of the movie is quickly and mercilessly unfold without any decent or (expected maybe)deeper explanation. As other reviewers have already written, this story could have definitely become an impressive Movie, especially thanks to the Actors who took part in it. I have given it a 6/10, but only because of the Actors and the interesting story.

All the elements are here but some things are not working. The actors give their all, but are a little cliched. I got the sense there was too much dialogue. The story itself is exciting enough, but I guess I've been spoiled by movies about Baader Meinhof and Gomorrah, where the leads were charismatic and the danger more pronounced, and the vision of Europe had more depth and colour. Call me crazy but I thought the lighting and the film stock used were running counter to the intrigue. It all seemed a little too high contrast indoors, and not enough contrast for the night scenes. And the film stock used seemed to lack a little definition and could have been, well, less ordinary, more big screen. There were plenty of locations, but I still got the sense that all the action was taking place in a rather dull, single suburb. Then again, maybe in reality it did. On the plus side, I did think the depiction of the early 1980s was pretty good. I also thought the use of Sir Anthony Hopkins to be a redeeming stroke of genius. Of all the actors his sparse yet crucial use was a joy to behold, and lifted the entire movie. I thought Sam Worthington good too, and to be fair he somehow outshone his immediate friend and unofficial leader of the group, being a darker character and definitely better groomed. That's what I found frustrating about the movie, little things like the lead's uncombed hair. I also don't remember the soundtrack at all, so maybe that was an opportunity that went begging. Kidnapping is an interesting ride and worth a watch, especially as it is all true, but I do believe it could have had a lot more clout.

Anthony Hopkins lends his name and histrionic talents to uplift an otherwise pedestrian real- life crime thriller KIDNAPPING MR. HEINEKEN. Without his presence this would be just another direct-to-video feature of European origin.

Don't get me wrong -I've been a huge fan of European-made caper and action movies since childhood, growing up watching innumerable dubbed -into-English low-budget imports on TV via syndication packages back in the '60s. At the high end, Jules Dassin's RIFIFI remains the unbeatable greatest caper movie of all time, and the various big-budget, in-joke titles like the original and update series of OCEAN'S ELEVEN are watchable. But give ma a silly Brad Harris-Tony Kendall intl. co-production and I'm in heaven.

With a weak script by William Brookfield, based on Peter de Vries' reportage and book about the beer company magnate's 1982 kidnapping, this film turns out to be lacking in entertainment value. The criminals, a rag-tag group of businessmen/slackers who turn to crime when their unreasonable application for a business loan is turned down, are simply an uninteresting bunch and their reluctance to resort to violence (lethal or otherwise) is morally laudable but leads to dullness - the picture has no sex and no real violence, hardly suitable for today's audiences. And it lacks humor, not even of the Disney or OVER-THE-HILL GANG puerile variety.

Only interesting structural note (which ultimately backfires) is the script's purist approach whereby every scene is presented from the criminals' point-of-view. In a kidnapping story the viewer is used to time-honored clichés regarding the police (or FBI or Interpol) and the victim's family and associates -what they are doing to get Heineken back alive and catch the baddies. But here we have none of this, only scenes about the kidnappers and their apprehension at getting caught. This novel structure (cops only appear sans dialog to pursue or make arrests) violates Hitchcock's famous dictum about suspense -all we get are surprises because we (like the kidnappers) are narratively left in the dark. We never see the net closing in on them, apart from a few red herrings based solely on the criminals' own paranoia.

Jim Sturgess as head kidnapper Cor, a family man with pregnant wife who inexplicably throws all that away to become a fugitive merely longing to return home from his Paris hideout, is empathetic and acts well enough, but can hardly carry a film. The role called for an A-list name, perhaps his supporting co-star Sam Worthington, miscast as Cor's brother-in-law, written as a hothead but unconvincingly played by Sam who the viewer is used to seeing (after AVATAR) as a leading man.

Hopkins in as brief a screen time as won Judi Dench an Oscar for Shakespeare IN LOVE, easily dominates the film with his brief but pungent & idiosyncratic monologues -he gets to speak unanswered because the hooded kidnappers don't want to respond to him verbally at all. You can see the wheels turning in Hopkins' head as he cleverly tries to get into the heads of his adversaries and casting him was a bold stroke (probably the reason Worthington signed on to an unpromising project at this stage in his career).

I did not like the camera-work and editing of the movie, especially during action & chase scenes such as a boat vs. cars sequence on Amsterdam's canals after the boys had robbed a bank delivery van to raise capital for their big Heineken snatch score. And the musical score is horrendous, sounding like a distant copy of those classic 1970s British action movie scores, notably echo-chamber brilliance for Roy Budd's GET CARTER (a movie by Mike Hodges that was among my very favorite films when I saw it several times in 1971 in first-run).

Regarding film's factual basis, that issue is irrelevant to me - I love both LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI regardless of either's allegiance to the original text. HEINEKEN merely proves that a purely fictional movie has more leeway to be entertaining and fanciful - the details here are pretty mundane, the degree of jeopardy for Heineken and his also-kidnapped chauffeur being minimal. The actual bank heist and people snatching are over in seconds, robbing the viewer of the fun which crime caper movies (TOPKAPI, RIFIFI) can provide, even in a silly one like Connery/Zeta-Jones' ENTRAPMENT. And the decision to make HEINEKEN the usual faux-British movie with all principal roles given British accents and speaking English (why not Dutch accents, as Holland with Derek De Lint, Rutger Hauer and endless beautiful actresses has the best English-speaking talent in all of Continental Europe) hurts its real-life credibility. I half expected a certain class of characters here to speak Cockney like Hollywood movies used to do in the 1930s for working-class characters in German or Russian set stories.