TBS

I love this movie! The acting is great and the plot is very good. Theo Maassen plays a strong main character which draws you in. You begin to like him, but he plays is very subtle and you feel his edges from the beginning. It's a guy you're not sure if you can trust him or not. Was he wrongfully convicted or is he the beast that others perceive him to be. It gives the movie a strong foundation and he maintains a great performance throughout. A couple of others in the theater weren't able to totally separate his movie character from his career as a comic, resulting in some laughs in the audience in some strange places in the movie. Nothing to blame on Maassen though, he did great. The girl in this movie is brilliant. It's the first role of Lisa Smit (only 13 or 14 herself) and she plays her character very well. She is a typical teenager, with all the problems and issues that girls have at that time in their lives. The plot of the movie had a nice pace and the tension is built up nicely. There is never a dull moment and almost all plot twists are believable. Only problem I had was a strange scene involving a group of journalists. The way they behaved seemed a bit contrived and purely there to help the story forward. They didn't fall in the current Hollywood trap of making a movie too long, it's perfect as it is, an hour and a half of pure entertainment.

Theo Maassen; you like him or you don't, there doesn't seem to be a way in between. I don't like him as a comedian, but his acting in this movie is impressive. Involuntary commitment is the subject of this movie and Theo Maassen plays Johan, the person who claims to be unjustly committed. Since he is not able to convince the psychiatrist that he is able to live some sort of a live in society, he escapes to prove that he was unjustly locked up. The movie is about this quest. Soon he is forced to kidnap a young girl to prevent his re-arrest. The interaction between him and the girl, Tessa, is elaborated very well. Theo Maassen is the person who can do that, playing a person you want to trust, but deep inside you never do. He is the most fearsome when he keeps his expression small, his eyes can tell the entire spectrum from evil to pity. Lisa Smit plays the kidnapped girl very well, from pure fright to the Stockholm syndrome induced affection. The plot is also convincing, no spectacular chase, but an end that swings between pure fear and empathy. A very impressive movie, thanks to Theo Maassen.

Wow, I am impressed. I watched the movie at the premiere in Rotterdam and it really hit me like a hammer. The film isn't about shootouts ans cold blooded murder. Its more a tension, you don't know what is going to happen next. Standup comedian Maassen carries the movie without being funny, although there are a few comic relief moments. Lisa Smit plays a perfect naive 13 year old. Together they search for the truth. Is the man innocent or not? I see a remake in this. The director Pieter Verhoef made also Dennis P. and Van God Los, he is really into crime. But in his movies crime isn't black and white. We see also the good aspects of the criminal. In TBS we see that there are more sides to one story.

TBS is a movie I watched a long time ago and re-watched today - I've figured it's still worth it.

For a quick in simple summary of the movie, it works. The dialog seems a bit 'blunt', and this is a problem more Dutch movies haves. Everything else however, is seriously well done. The cameras are in the right spots, acting by Maassen and Smit is tremendously well done (I was surprised to see that this is the only 'big' movie Smit has acted in) and the story is a very good one as well.

The movie doesn't have any of the cheesiness more often seen in Dutch movies and the story is one that moves you - I myself was heavily affected by the ending, in a way few movies have managed to do (Sin City or Lord of the Rings come to mind). I really wish I would've rated the movie lower than a 9 to make my review seem less cheesy, but really, it is that good. If you've had the pleasure of hearing about this movie, then by all means watch it - you won't regret it in the slightest.

This film premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. It's about a criminal who's under a special type of therapy, TBS. He manages to escape. The TBS method is very controversial and is often criticized in the Netherlands for the amount of escaped criminals lately. Director Pieter Kuijpers achieves to create an interesting mood, blending fear, violence, feelings of safety and dreamy thoughts in one paranoia mixture. This atmosphere is really powerful and easily keeps this movie interesting along the way. I'm not sure about the performance of Theo Maassen (he's a dutch comedian, couldn't really get that thought out of my head) but he's not a miscast. Lisa Smit surely fulfills her roll decently. The script is excellent and suspense is present at almost every moment. It's really powerful. I found the use of sound impressive, it's pretty special and powerful.

Overall it's just a great movie. It's still lingers in my mind a bit. I would recommended this film to everyone.