Klokkenluider

This is a wet dream of a film for the conspiracy theorists amongst us! "Ewan" (Amit Shah) and his wife "Silke" (Sura Dohnke) are holed up in a rather nice lakeside house in Flanders. They are awaiting the arrival of a journalist to whom they are going to impart some fairly startling information - for a fee, of course. It's so significant that the newspaper sends two minders - "Glynn" (Roger Evans) and "Chris" (Tom Burke) to keep an eye on them. Now these two have worked together for quite a while, but the latter man is eyeing up a career move to the middle east - and he's not necessarily looking to take his mate with him. Over the next 24 hours of their incarceration, we learn a little of the characteristics of these four flawed individuals, and perhaps those who can lip-read might get a clue as to the nature of the big secret! The arrival of foul-mouthed junior journalist "Flo" gives Jenna Coleman a couple of scenes to brings things to an head and deliver a quirky denouement to this lightly, but darkly, comedic shorter drama. For me, the stars are an on-form Evans who delivers well as the Welshman with a few demons to deal with, and Shah who plays the hapless IT geek who takes paranoia to an whole new level. Apparently the title means "whistleblower". It's enjoyable, this film.

I've had a few days to mull over this movie now and I want to preface this by saying that it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

Not a rich, delicious kind of bitter like 80% dark chocolate (is that really bitter though? I'm not sure) but this is the bad kind of bitter. Like when as a kid you think the soap must taste as good as it smells so...

There is never a point where this feels like a masterpiece. Which is nothing to be ashamed of; you never know. Watching this there is a persistent tone of "Look at me; I went to film school; I make grown up films, not kid movies like Minions blah blah blah".

And while I do like the Minion movies, I'm still the target demographic of those pretentious movies like Midsomar or the Three Colors trilogy. I mean, I hated Midsomar but if you're movie has shifts from color to black and white and back again or say...in one scene a horse starts speaking and no one remarks on it, I'm totally down for that kind of movie.

This movie isn't so stylized as that though it has a style. This breezey, aloof ambiance of people waiting for something terrible to happen they half expect to happen but they've already been waiting a long time and worrying has just become too routine.

There are some interesting characters with interesting dynamics and it plays well with every actor ensuring that it doesn't go off the ledge into obnoxious. This isn't an obnoxious movie; just an overall annoying movie about bad people (and good ones).

Atmospherically quite admirable, it is irksome how they keep whining. No judgement on the characters; I'd whine too in that situation, it's just that aesthetically, you need your characters to be a bit more stoic, otherwise it feels like you, the audience, are being told what to feel.

Hit and miss in its dialogue and the bemusing sort of jokes-that-aren't-jokes. This isn't a comedy though it does use humor to draw attention to the absurdity that is...whatever this is.

It has its moments as strange people have these moments of tenseness and then sudden empathy.

There's a lot of profanity. No truly reasonable person has any real problem with profanity, there I said it. Any word said too often gets boring though. I suppose it's all about it being annoying people, or stressed people or something but they take it way too far.

This is not the movie's fault but in the closed captions they keep saying how people are "speaking Dutch".

No, they were speaking Flemish. Flemish isn't Dutch. They're both dialects of Batavian if you like. This is one of my crosses to die on...

Ultimately this something of a Sophomoric effort. They effort is there but it was clearly made with more passion than professionalism which can be fine for something cutsier but the ambition dwarves the talent here.

If it's more about the journey than the destination, then please remember that people only say that with an implication that each journey gives some kind of new perspective which this film doesn't really do.

I don't like it when people think they're being edgy when really, they just have no idea how to write out of a corner.

I don't really recommend this for anyone. It's not even bad enough to love.

A very slight film, with a weak screenplay, that seems to do no more than ask the question; "When in an unfamiliar situation, who should you trust?"

It's described as a "darkly comic, character-driven thriller", but it is dialogue heavy and action light and feels much more plot-driven.

Looking back at the actions of the characters, only Flo's behaviour seemed to make sense with the benefit of hindsight.

This film might make you think, "What would I do if I were in the same position as Ewan and Silke?" But that is little reward for spending 90 minutes of your time watching such a poorly written film.

IMHO this shows that Neil Maskell has been watching closely in his acting roles for other directors - particularly Ben Wheatley, where he delivered a great performance in Kill List.

Although a "small film", this combines an intriguing premiss with a great cast and delivers tonally with a nice balance between comedy and threat. I'm on board with pretty much anything that Tom Burke does (apart from The Souvenir) and he's great as usual here - as is Jenna Coleman, who is having a blast as a *very* sweary reporter (?).

The script enables some nice interactions between the cast and keeps the tension going pretty much throughout, as befits a nice little thriller.

Recommended.

Impressive. Not an inch - or centimeter of excess fat in an impressive directorial debut. The writing is tight, no words wasted. The cast delivers - no surprises there, each playing their part to perfection. Kudos to the sound and lighting, both adding to a story that unfolds gradually, taking its time as it does. What's the secret? The clue is in the last words spoken, although that could be just paranoia on my part. But then again, you never know. Or do you? I liked this. A late night offering on Channel 4, totally bereft of caped crusaders and CGI. The Belgian actress should get in front of the camera more; she's a natural.