Klokkenluider

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.

First of all, can we commend the amazing use of sound in this film? The deep contrasts between loud and quiet is so impactful. Really kept my senses perked the whole time.

Secondly, although the story is quite slow-paced, it kept engaged the ENTIRE film. Didn't lose its grip once. The great use of sound had a lot to do with it.

The conversation was minimalistic, but not boring - on the contrary, it was intriguing and made you want to know more.

The story itself is thought-provoking, and left me with a lot to ponder about at the end. I found it especially fascinating how much and how little we get all at same time.

First-time writer-director Neil Maskell made his reputation (well, with me, at least) via his acting work with British indie film-maker Ben Wheatley and this 2022 debut certainly has some of the traits (dark offbeat humour and the threat of violence, essentially) of Wheatley's best work. The central premise here of the importance and potential jeopardy of whistle-blowers is, of course, increasingly topical and, via some intriguing cinematography (slo-mo, interesting angles, dynamic hand-held, etc.) and an unnerving sound design, Maskell builds tangible tension and dread.

The director also struck gold with his casting (attracted by his Wheatley work?) as we follow married couple Amit Shah's government IT guy, Ewan, and his wife Sura Dohnke's Belgian Silke, holed up in Silke's home country and joined by twin 'protectors' (supposedly hired by the newspaper buying the whistle-blowers' story), Tom Burke's softly spoken (a trait of the actor, of course), level-headed, Ewan, and Roger Evans' troubled, volatile Glynn.

It's undoubtedly a stylish, brooding affair in which the ('dystopian') uncertainty around what exactly the whistle-blowers know is (wisely) left unsaid, whilst their paranoia builds to an almost unbearable pitch - largely fuelled by the offputtingly semi-comic pair of 'protectors' and then brought into further focus by the arrival of Jenna Coleman's (in a near film-stealing cameo) foul-mouthed journalist, Flo. The main theme here of the seeming need to conform to the prevailing 'political doctrine' - whether in 'the West' or elsewhere - and not to 'blab' about anything untoward (as Burke's Ewan says at one point, 'I don't think anything') is not exactly original but is convincingly depicted by Maskell. Perhaps my only reservation is that I would have preferred the 'uncertainty' to have held until the final reel - as opposed to the more definitive denouement that Maskell chose.

In terms of comparators, aside from the Wheatley influence and the oft-quoted In Bruges, dark comedies abound these days, of course, particularly on TV along the lines of Guilt, Boat Story, Back to Life, I May Destroy You, etc. I even thought of a feature length episode of the marvellous Inside No. 9. Whatever, Maskell has shown enough promise here to warrant a 'follow' on his career.

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.

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.