Issue de secours

In the first 20 minutes of this flick I began to wonder if there was an Amsterdam in the U.S. Not one major or minor role in this movie had a Dutch accent. This distracted me from enjoying an otherwise interesting story set in one of Europe's oldest cities.

Distraction then led to befuddlement. The Script writer seemed fixated on Amsterdam's reputation as a purveyor of child porn and pedophilia. There was more than a couple of instants were characters made reference to their own awful proclivity.

Add to that gruesome and astonishingly gratuitous scenes of violence which were oddly incongruous (ie. the ambulance wheel rolling over a para-medic's head mashing it like an over-ripe pumpkin.)

But most of all. I could not believe Oscar-winner, William Hurt or even Jennifer Tilly and Dennis Leary could associate themselves with this strange and uneven film.

This ranks amongst the worst films I've ever seen. I bought the DVD based on the plot summary which sounded interesting and because William Hurt was one of the actors who normally features in great movies. After about 15 minutes, when we got to the gangster scene at the back of the hotel, I had to check the back of the box to see if it was a comedy rather than a "thriller with more twists and turns than the streets of Amsterdam itself". The ridiculous story line and the ham acting were making me laugh. I persevered to the end of the film in the desperate hope that there would be a great point or message but alas this film had absolutely no redeeming features for me. Truly awful. It says on the back cover "When you can't scream you can only run..." but I figured out another two options, cringe or howl with laughter.

This strange movie is about a 10 year old girl who is a witnesses a murder. In the rest of the movie she's pursued by the murderer. The special effects are great especially in the end when a ambulance (with the girl in the back) gets persued by the police. On the other hand, the story is realy bad. Clues appear out of nothing and everyone is speaking English which makes the story not realistic

Maybe Dutch isn't the world's most beautiful language, but neither is English, and it's really sad that a Dutch director makes a film in Holland were everyone speaks English. I could understand it if the director was American, but not now. Apart from that, this isn't agood movie, and some of the lines are really bizarre (f. ex the scene in the elevator:

• Malaria, moving north! - El nino, sir. Is it funny? No. And it isn't more understandable because it's in English. According to this movie, everyone in Amsterdam seems to be either prostitutes or drug atticts or both, except a few policemen and hotel managers

And here we have another try from a Dutch Filmmaker trying to go international with a third rate action flick. We 've got two American actors, once known for making better movies who look like they are in for the money, we have a kid with more balls than Rambo and some cheap looking stunts looking like they have been cut from a Hong Kong action flick. Only watch this movie to see what is wrong with Dutch movies, there is not one thing that is worth mentioning and that is rare, but what do you want with a director best known for the infamous "Flodder" series. this movie sank to the bottom of the movie graveyard and nobody did see it in the cinema's , with a good reason, do not be fooled with the trailer.