De behandeling

"The Treatment" is very dark Belgian thriller, wonderfully directed, never boring, with great music and a brilliant damaged main character.

In the wrong hands, the movie could have turned out a big cliché, but narrative is so well done, that it pretty much keeps you guessing how it ends.

It's not a movie for the squeamish due to several scenes of abuse. Even the implied, off-screen brutality might not be for everyone.

I was very surprise of the high production quality. Until now, "Bullhead" was for me a Belgian film that set high standards in the dark crime genre, but "The Treatment" is a far more balanced and gritty movie.

If you like the "Prisoners", "Se7en", "True Detective" or "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", be sure not to miss this!

The Treatment or originally "de Behandeling" is adapted from a serial novel by Mo Hayder with the help of screenwriter Carl Joos and beautifully directed by Hans Herbots.

The film opens with a flashback; two boys are walking alongside train track while a deep and melancholic voice reads letters aloud from a pedophile who claims to have kidnapped and killed one of the children. The letters are addressed to our main protagonist Nick Cafmeyer (Geert Van Rampelberg) and speak of his younger brother, now missing for 25 years.

In the present, Nick, a detective, faced with a case where a mother and father are found brutally tortured and their son is missing. Nick's determination to solve this case grows more and more personal as his pursuit of the truth borders on unhealthily obsessive. Could it be connected with his brother's unsolved kidnapping?

The Treatment is an expertly crafted mind-bender. The film seems to taunt and toy with the audience's anticipations and run it in circles to match our perplexity to Nick's confusion. The cinematography and score are very effective in shaping the mood and aiding in the psychological effect of this film. It's an intellectual piece and will definitely be enjoyed more by the audience who likes to think and not simply be guided by exposition. In fact, this film has very little exposition at all which is a precious attribute to have.

There are elements that were reminiscent of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, True Detective Season One, and Prisoners, perhaps most of all due to its brutally dark subject matter. Overall this picture is a very gritty and engaging story. You'll be trying to follow along, often times drawing the same conclusions as the characters only to be proved wrong time and time again. Much like as in life, The Treatment leaves doesn't simply hand us the answers.

The Treatment is a captivating and wholly original film adaptation of the most sinister persuasion. Evoking sentiments of unease and dread, it is unlike any American film and may be difficult for some to watch.

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The Treatment is a psychologically intense mystery-thriller directed by Hans Herbot. Unusually, it's a Belgian adaption of a British crime novel. Although it is from the Low Countries, it follows very much in the style of Scandinavian noir. It's a pretty uncompromisingly bleak, tense and very dark story that focuses on very troubling subject matter. A police detective is still haunted by the unsolved disappearance of his brother who was suspected of being a victim of a local paedophile. He is thrust into the middle of a new case involving another child abuser whose modus operandi is house invasions of families with a mother, father and young boy. He inflicts particularly horrible perverted actions on his victims, the detective wonders seriously if both stories are linked in some way.

It's quite rare for a film, far less a thriller, to focus on the very unpleasant subject matter of child abuse and paedophiles. The Treatment, therefore, walks a very fine line between being explicit yet stopping short of being exploitative. It's a path that it navigates very successfully though, for this is certainly a disturbing movie that shows enough to make the viewer very uncomfortable, yet knows how to do this without going too far. The mystery itself is layered and deep and draws you in further and further. Things are slowly revealed in sometimes unexpected ways. It wouldn't be right to reveal too much about the plot here, as the best way to approach this one is with as little prior knowledge as possible. It's helped considerably by some very strong acting, in some roles that could not have been easy and would have required some real skill. It is not a film that is going to be for everyone though, as despite the careful treatment it is still very grim stuff on the whole. But for those who like dark thrillers and especially ones who appreciate the northern European variety, this is a keeper.

I first saw this in 2015 on a dvd. I am writing a review now without revisiting it.

The movie is very very distressing n doesn't require a second viewing.

I hate movies which depict violence towards kids and i can't even stand horror movies where they show onscreen kiddies' death scenes.

The only reason i am generous with the ratings cos it is a very well made film, specially the police investigation n its aided by a top notch acting by the lead actor.

The lead guy is so emotionally exposed on screen that we audiences also feel his turmoil.

The flashback story is poignant with a harrowing n ambiguous ending while the main story is very dark n distressing.

The only time i felt good n did phew was the scene where the lead cop keeps punching the pervert's face.

This movie will remind 8 mm, Prisoners, Bereavement.

British crime novelist Mo Hayder's series of Jack Caffery potboilers have been gaining quite a fan following since 2000's inaugural entry Birdman. Surely even the author herself could hardly have hoped for a better introduction to cinema audiences than this Belgian adaptation of its 2001 follow-up The Treatment. Chauvinism aside, a concept largely alien to the majority of the Belgian population let me assure you, this ranks as one of the most accomplished thrillers produced worldwide this year. Underrated director Hans Herbots, most frequently employed in TV but also responsible for one of the more exciting domestic big screen debuts with the English language adaptation of Anne Provoost's popular young adult novel FALLING in 2001, has style to burn but wisely never lets it get in the way of a complex and compelling plot, expertly bowdlerized by respected screenwriter Carl Joos who also adapted Jef Geeraert's classic lowlands noir The Alzheimer Affair for Erik Van Looy's well-received THE MEMORY OF A KILLER.

The Jack Caffery character has been "Flemicized" into Nick Cafmeyer (Geert Van Rampelberg in what should be a star-making performance), hands on police detective carrying the heavy emotional burden of having been a near witness in his early teens to the kidnapping of his kid brother Bjorn. Pointing the finger towards a suspected local pedophile, the creepy Ivan Plettinckx (a devastating turn by Johan van Assche from another Geeraerts adaptation, Jan Verheyen's solid DOSSIER K.), but lack of evidence prevents his conviction. In the twenty-odd years since, Plettinckx has tormented Nick with every conceivable scenario of what might have happened to his sibling, whose body was never located. So when a home-jacking goes tragically wrong and the couple's 9-year old son is abducted, things are about to get profoundly personal for Nick who suspects a link to what happened some two decades ago.

To reveal anything more would be a crying shame as the film (at least for the source novel's non-readers) pulls one shocking surprise after another out of its magician's high hat with nary a false note credibility-wise. True, the culprit's nominal motive for his heinous deeds did strike as a little far-fetched, going as far as raising an unintended smile, but bearing in mind that this emanates from an extremely twisted mindset to begin with quickly puts the narrative back on track. While the movie pulls no punches in detailing the detective's downward spiral, much more is (strongly) suggested rather than explicitly shown, which is a good thing as it involves several unspeakable acts committed on young children, at least one of which is bound to hit you like an 18-wheeler cruising down the highway. The beyond bleak ending cynically bars all exits from this "hell on earth".

A major plus for domestic audiences is that Herbots recruited most of his cast among the reliable but faintly generic second stringers from his TV heritage where more instantly recognizable faces (such as the ubiquitous Jan Decleir or Koen De Bouw) would have harmed the film's brand of stylized semi-documentary realism. Handsome Van Rampelberg has been building an intriguing body of work since the turn of the millennium and brings a febrile intensity to the troubled anti-hero faced with an unbearable judgment call when he has to choose between upholding the law or finally learning what happened to his brother. Although he definitely gets into hot water morally, the viewer will root for him every step of the way. Burly Dominique Van Malder, following an indelible bit part in Peter Monsaert's uneven OFFLINE, equally impresses as a severely socially handicapped neighbor who may unwittingly (?) hold the key to the whole mystery. A prime suspect, scrawny swim teacher Chris Gommaer is played to twitching perfection by Michael Vergauwen whose arrest ranks among the film's most heartbreaking moments, a magnificently composed image shot overhead, indicative of the director's effortless technical brilliance.