The East

The movie starts off great. Not many historical flaws and a very balanced execution between the different perspectives. Sadly, the second part of the movie takes a Tarantino-esq turn in tone and story (like Inglorious Basterds) and this almost ruined the movie for me. Either commit to one style or the other. Furthermore, the second half is extremele unbalanced and depict the Dutch Special Forces troops as coldblooded murders basically the whole time. If you look at the actual historical facts about Westerling, you'd see that alot of nuance is left off the table. The ending is also very strange and basically pure fiction. This wouldn't be a bad thing because Tarantino did this with Inglorious Basterds aswell and that worked out great. However, Tarantino maintained his tone and story throughout the whole movie. This movie does not. Which makes it feel very disjointed.

Speaking of acting, visuals, story and music: The acting is great (for Dutch standards) and the visuals and music are also very good. The story is very well done (for the first half) but then descends into fiction for a big part. Without spoiling it, yes there were alot of war crimes being committed at that time and place, but a whole lot of other stuff was left out. The second half felt like a montage of war crimes by the Dutch special forces without any actual story being told.

All in all, the movie is still good. The first half especially is very much worth the watch. I would still recommend it, just be warned about historical inaccuracies and lack of nuance.

Based on the stories my father told me is this mostly based on reality. It was an awful time he had for four years. As an MP he followed this man closely and saw the story unfold. It took him 40 years to tell this to me what happened. Thanks Jim and all the actors.

A hard to rate movie.

I have to rely on stories my granddad told me serviing in theDutch Indies during that time. I have digged into the history, but i have to admit: Dutch eduction failed in the time I went to school about this subject.

The movie started with a coming home trip of the soldiers. I doubt that scene was close to history accuracy. Didnt fit the period of time. Looked more like the 80's or the 2020's the way people acted. But ok, I see why the scene was added.

The first part of the storyline was actually pretty good. I did vividly see my granddad up there. The boys getting klapper for the soldiers (klapper = coconut in the Indies). And yes the soldiers were just walking around to "protect Dutch property". Please notice the quote marks. In the second half the story goes beserk. I doubt there was a team doing the things shown in the movie. This said, I have no doubts whatsoever, the Dutch stepped way across the line of what we call , hmmzz good. Lots of innocent civilians were simply murdered.

But it was clearly were the director gots his inspiration of: not history books (well, there arent many history books describing these dark pages of Dutch history), but movies like Platoon, Rambo, Deerhunter, Once upon in America (yes, too clear to not notice) and series like Tour of Duty.

But I still gave this movie a 7. Why? Well it is good someone tried to make a movie of this part of history. Besides that, the acting was overall pretty good and the camera work was above Dutch quality. The storyline, being historical accurate or not, was also good, and by being not chronological (did I already mention you can compare it to Once upon a time in America) it got even better.

Also the thin line between good and bad was a good thing. The director, despite of his background didnt pick really picked sides and gave the viewer enough space to make his or hers own opinion.

So I was surprised of the end result and I have to say, this might be one of the best Dutch movies I have ever seen, with actors not that well known in the Netherlands.

In my opinion this movie missed an opportunity to teach the average viewer about a part of Dutch history which unfortunately is not very well known (and still is debated). The movie is well made, but it left me a bit disappointed. I am of Indonesian decent and was very much excited to see the movie because I'd love to see this topic getting more attention. But it is really a fictional story loosely based on factual characters and events. The central weight of the story lies with the conflicted protagonist and his relation to the antagonist which is only set to a backdrop of Indonesia and their fight for independence. It lightly touches some of the context and background but it has no weight in the movie. It may have caused some viewers to believe that this movie only wishes to show the Dutch were there blatantly killing innocent villagers. Although the Indonesians are almost portrait as Vietcong (yet you won't see any of them shooting even one bullet though). In fact, because the movie only shows violence coming from the Dutch the movie feels very unbalanced if you are knowledgeable about the actual history. I know this movie is not meant to be a documentary but as they have done a good job with visual accuracy I perhaps expected a Schindler's list kind of gripping movie in terms of accuracy.

Going into this movie fully aware of all the drama surrounding it. My tip is don't go into it expecting historical accuracy. We didn't expect accuracy for apocalypse now or 1917. It's a setting for a war movie. And a anti war piece just like the previously named films

That being said, as far as a war movie its okay. Its mostly the usual story of the innocent fng that seems more pure then his compatriots from day one. His degradation as he gets hit with the horrors of war taken to the conclusion of the story.

The sets are beautiful as it is all shot on location and the kit and gear are all amazing. The actors are mostly good, the Turk being a pretty decent Kurtz rip-off. Mostly i am happy, this is a Dutch film made about a subject most people could learn more about, with great production value and some nice use of lights and camera work. The last act is definitely the weakest, but the beginning. Is pretty decent.

I would say: Watch with managed expectations.