Do Not Disturb

...by watching this tripe! I waited nearly 3 years to see this film because I really enjoy William Hurt's performances, so you can imagine how shocked and (yes) disturbed I was when I began watching it on cable last night and saw how unbelievably BAD he is in this movie. He has a ridiculous on-again off-again Southern accent, and he cannot say one single line of dialogue that sounds convincing.

The material he's given is horrendous, it's true -- badly paced, thoroughly uneven in every way: the plot veers from pathetic stabs (no pun intended) at black comedy to morbid, monotonous melodrama and car chases, with not one truly satisfying moment in the entire film. Jennifer Tilly, surprisingly, came off very well here - she was believable and sympathetic throughout. Actually, there WAS one satisfying moment -- when this torturous exercise in trashy tedium finally wrapped up and the end titles rolled on the screen. William Hurt must have wanted to visit Amsterdam really bad.

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.

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

This is really much more of a comedy than it is of a thriller which does not mean it is bad. The action is OK, the story is OK, the actors are OK with some minor faults here and there, but who cares. The best thing here though is that it is quite funny. Never have I seen such a dumb and luckless hitman as in this one. I believe Corey Johnson who plays the hitman called Nasty has the best performance here although he doesn't act like Oscar – worthy he surely brings the most fun to the viewers. The kid, who actually is the lead character, is OK too and she brings a Home Alone feeling to this film.

The only thing that made me a bit curious is whether people in the USA really think that Amsterdam is like the worst place on earth because I mean, how could they? Are not NY, LA and so on much worse? Or is that just something we over here feel. Well I at least can say this. I've been to Amsterdam at least 3 times and I'm still living to report to you about this film, so how bad can Amsterdam really be.

Not bad, but I've seen better.

6 out of 10

I guess no one is Dutch in Amsterdam. Was there a shortage of actors that can at least sound like they are a local? I've been to Amsterdam a few times and yeah the majority speak English very fluently but you know they are Dutch. Anyone have an accent? No!

My husband and I were drawn into this film because we like both Hurt and Tilly and because the premise of the film sounded palpable. I'll bet it was fun to shoot because per capita, each actor only had about 20 lines to memorize. They must have had oodles of free time.

The icing on the cake came at the end. "I hope rehab works for him." Ick. Gimmee a break.