De Premier

Erik van Looy is one of Belgiums most beloved celebrities. He hosts the popular show De Slimste Mens (The Smartest Man) and is famous for his eccentric laugh. As a moviemaker his biggest succes were Loft and The Memory of a Killer, with the Belgian Robert De Niro: Jan Decleir.

This movie however triumphs in stupidity and cringeworthyness. The plot is full of holes, the protagonist acts like a wooden stick, and dialogues seem to be written by five year olds. I watched this film twice, it even being worse the second time around.

The only positive part about the film is the performance of the driver, who is able to bring a little smile on your face once in a while.

3/10, for Stijn Van Opstal. Without him, it would be 1/10.

I did not expect too much from this film, but I was pleasantly surprised. Erik Van Looy did a good job on this one. The film takes you on a ride, right from the start, no boring moments. The superb acting from Koen De Bouw makes it very interesting to watch. You will have to guess until the end where the plot is going. 10 minutes before the end, I thought I would be disappointed with how I thought it would end,- because I don't like open, half finished ends,- but they did manage to give it a proper ending, good! If you don't like bloody, raw films, this is probably not the one to watch for you. Otherwise, go and watch this one!

The good: high pace, exciting, 2 hours of hard suspense. Decent (but not overwhelming) acting performances. Dark, grim atmosphere throughout the whole movie. I didn't get bored for a second. Many similarities to De Zaak Alzheimer, but with an even higher tempo.

The not so good: bad, sometimes even corny plot twists. Certain things were just too unrealistic and could have been done better. It seems to me that either they had to cut the movie to fit within 120 minutes or they were out of money. The ending was disappointing, compared to the rest of the film.

It does make me think about how a situation like this would play out in real life. Let's hope that it never comes to that.

This movie is a typical B class movie made with A class budget. Screenplay is naive to say the least - some may call it daft. There are massive holes in logic behind portrayed heroes and action takes swings from bad to worse. As in all B class movies villains use all super-tech gear, yet are equipped with IQ hovering around lower 60s - enough to speak to people but not enough intelligence for their actions to make any sense. If you have two hours to waste or have guests that you do not like, treat them or yourself with this "movie".

I watched the first 15mins and there was not one English word, and no subtitles. Maybe that changed later on but if I do not need to know what the actors are saying, there's little point them saying it perhaps. Various discussions about the daughter, and their day ahead, maybe one of them is 'in on it'... who knows, as it was all Dutch to me. Gave up.