Kidnapping Mr. Heineken

"You know what your doing is completely stupid, unless you pull it off. In which case it could be completely brilliant." When a group of friends are denied a loan they are desperate for money. They come up with a plan to kidnap the founder of the Heineken beer company (Hopkins) and ask for a large ransom in exchange. What starts off as a great idea, little by little begins to unravel. This movie is based on a true story and this is something I knew nothing about. The movie itself started off good and I was interested but the longer it went on the less interested I seemed to get. I'm not sure why, the acting was good and the interactions between the kidnappers was entertaining but this was another movie that I had a hard time staying focused on. It really seemed to stumble toward the end and this was another movie that I was thankful that it wasn't longer. Overall, I wondered why a movie with this cast didn't have a wider release, after watching it I can see why. I disappointingly give this a C.

Amsterdam 1982, the recession has hit hard. A group of friends and builders are down on their luck and are refused a bank loan. It's spokesman Cor van Hout proposes an outrageous plan, to kidnap local millionaire, the successful Freddy Heineken. The group test the waters by carrying out a bank heist, then carry out the daring dead, taking Heineken and his driver, holding them hostage, issuing a huge ransom demand. Cracks appear in their unit, and their family lives suffer too.

Most of the positives surround Hopkins, he gives a masterclass in acting, his performance is understated and yet believable. Some of the best scenes in the movie revolve around his demands for Chinese food, books, Schubert etc, it's very random but enjoyable.

One entertaining moment when the team realise they've left the ransom note in a photocopier nearby.

Sadly the film didn't keep my attention, it's the kind of film you'll need a crossword or Sudoku puzzle. Unfortunately it is quite boring, the plot was a good one, I think possibly had some humour been added to it that may have helped, as a thriller it just doesn't work, there's no tension or drama caused, you never feel at any point that the gang truly mean business.

As for the accents, some of them wanted to go Dutch, some of them didn't, it felt inconsistent.

It could have been so good. I've only seen a trailer for the Dutch production, but that seems to have the atmosphere that was needed, this production is sadly a week old unwanted glass of Heineken, FLAT.

5/10

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.

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.