Estado de Emergência

Okay, the armosphere and sets give you the idea it really is a time warp back to the years of the story. The bad cop interrogation is unnecessary and not like Baantjer would have written a script. Also he would be disgusted by the many swearing and cursing, something he always did not like about the TV series made. Some scenes are funny and touching but leaves some questions unanswered at the end. Waldemar and Tygo play great must be stated.

Skimming rapidly over choices of what to watch I stumbled upon this little diamond in the rough. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find anything to watch these days. The entertainment industry has gone from bad to worse in recent years notably in terms of quantity versus quality. There's no shortage of what to watch but most of it's terrible. This title could have easily been looked over and lost in the thick sauce of half baked productions. But no, it came in much better than expected. And my demands are very high seeing that I lived in Amsterdam in the late 70s. I am also a stickler for historical accuracy. This one has it right nicely down to the old pre-euro currency denominations in Holland and Belgium as well as Amsterdam cop cars and uniforms of the era. Even the landmarks of a more trivial nature hold their own such as the location of one of the city's hospitals and a "telefoon" booth overlooking a RLD canal in the Jordaan (don't quite recall if there was one). The car models, license plates and taxi meters all accurate. Long story short this crime drama was incredibly accurate and directed by someone who takes great pride in depicting Amsterdam of the 80s. There were a few too many generic labyrinth like non existent alleyway scenes but otherwise historical punctuality in my opinion. I would have liked to have seen a few more easily identifiable streets such as Warmoesstraat and Zeedijk depicted but close enough. The plot built around a Buddy cop team with a ball busting chief was also quite formulaic. But not to worry there's a pretty decent twist thrown in and the plot layers mesh well too. All in all a groot thumbs up voor this one.

Amsterdam in the early 80's. Great acting, suspense and good story. Really enjoyed this!

As a Dutchie, hating on almost every Dutch movie that was ever made, this is the exception I have been hoping for. It is well casted, well acted and for Dutch standards they went above and beyond to make it look and feel like you are in Amsterdam in the 80's. The Amsterdam accent is well done by all the actors, and the clothes and decor are all contributing to a unique feel. The story is also somewhat surprising and unpredictable.

OK, this is not bad for Dutch standards but I don't like it either. At least it doesn't have a cast of all the popular teen soap stars of the moment like most Dutch movies. But apart from the main character being called Jurriaan de Cock this has nothing to do with the Baantjer books. It seems they only adopted this name because it's very popular in the Netherlands, but this Jurriaan de Cock seems to be a completely different person than the one from the books. Cheap action flick, film noir, blah