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Black Lotus is a film that tries to capture the essence of a Hollywood action flick, but unfortunately falls short of the mark. The film begins with a Dutch cast speaking English, some with strong accents and others with none at all, making for an awkward and uneven start. The first half of the film sees Matteo's character, played by Rico Verhoeven, new to acting but unfortunately barely speaking and feeling like an afterthought or an intern who was given a bit part. However, the second half of the film sees a noticeable improvement in Rico's performance, showing more confidence and delivering a better portrayal of his character.

Production-wise, the film lacks the necessary polish, with many shots feeling basic and not cinematic enough. Low-end color grading is evident in some scenes, with clear transitions and masks showing up in post-production. The editing is passable, but at times can be jarring, with some action scenes that are choppy and hard to follow, leaving the viewer feeling lost and unable to fully engage with the plot.

The plot itself is decent, following the story of a friend of a deceased father returning to the lives of a Dutch family, only to find himself in trouble with the new stepfather. The film follows the story of Matteo, played by Rico Verhoeven, who finds himself in trouble after getting involved with the new stepfather in the Dutch family. He must rescue the young daughter of the family from a kidnapping, leading to a series of action-packed scenes. While the story has its moments, there are several awkward plot points and strange character decisions that leave the viewer feeling frustrated and disconnected from the film.

While Matteo, played by Rico Verhoeven, shows improvement in his performance throughout Black Lotus, he still has a long way to go if he wants to reach the level of legendary action stars like The Rock and Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's clear that Verhoeven has potential, but he needs more training and experience to refine his skills and become a more compelling and convincing actor on screen. With the right guidance and dedication, Verhoeven may one day become a force to be reckoned with in the world of action films.

Further more on the positive side, the film does offer some entertaining action scenes that are exciting and have a level of intensity similar to that of a Hollywood blockbuster. However, these scenes can be overshadowed by the film's other shortcomings, such as the confusing editing and uneven acting performances.

In addition to the plot, the film also showcases some beautiful cinematography that captures the Dutch landscape and its unique architecture. However, the visual appeal is often undermined by the film's poor editing and lack of continuity, leaving the viewer feeling disoriented and confused.

The film's soundtrack also adds to the experience, with a mix of Dutch and international artists creating a high-energy and intense atmosphere. However, the sound mixing is inconsistent at times, with some scenes being too loud or too quiet.

Furthermore, Black Lotus attempts to incorporate themes of family, loyalty, and redemption, but these themes are not fully developed or explored, resulting in a shallow and superficial portrayal of these concepts.

Overall, while the film has its moments, it ultimately falls short due to its uneven acting, poor production quality, and lack of cohesive storytelling. If you are a fan of action movies, you may find some enjoyment in the film, but for those looking for a more polished and cohesive production, this film may not be worth the price of admission.

The movie doesn't make any sense in it's totality. Let me explain. The movie starts with a number of events that are totally not coherent to each other. I was thinking: what is this scene trying to say? Will it later come to a plottwist or something? I've got the feeling they had a script for 30 minutes and needed to fill another hour with pointless scenes.

Now the main actor, Rico Verhoeven. I think the guy should keep it to boxing. I heard he partly financed the movie with his own money. Well, determination I guess. But the guy isn't made for acting. Rico has a terrible accent that he even more tries to hide. I mean, if you're not a fluent English speaker, don't give him this roll. Speaking of accents, everybody in the movie had a weird accent. Also, a typical Dutch family that speaks English? That needed some explanation.

Back to Rico. He had the main roll because of the financing, I guess. The funny thing is that the director probably knew he wasn't a born actor, and kept his mouth shut all movie. I think I've never seen a main actor talk so less in a movie. Also, I'm wondering if Rico was able to pick some scenes for himself. Because around 3 times he was doing some stuff without a shirt on, while some sexy music was playing. Pretty hilarious in a way.

The movie sucks in every way possible. Maybe, if you want a laugh about a movie that's just really bad, you should go to the cinema and watch this movie. Otherwise, keep the money in your pockets!

I didnt expect much from this movie, but I started watching it anyway because of the presence of Frank Grillo, who usually only stars in the better B-movies, but not this time around...

The bad: this is amateur night. It has got the look and feel of a cheaply produced television production and everything you can think of is below average.

Starting with a TON of terrible supporting actors. And the leading actors are void of any charisma. Frank Grillo only stars in this picture for a few minutes in a small supporting role.

Not any good then? I can say with 100% certainty that this movie aint any good whatsoever.

It's difficult to find the words to describe just how bad this movie is. The acting of everyone is abismal but I guess it's hard to act when the script is done by a beta version of ChatGPT that was trained on the worst B-movies of the 80s. There's even a shameless ripoff scene of the classic movie Amsterdamned (watch that one instead!) where a corpse is dragged over a sightseeing canalboat.

The cinematography is crap and it looks like they could afford 1 drone but were not allowed to fly it so they took quick illegals shots on 4 locations that you keep seeing.

And the action.... WHERE IS THE ACTION?!

There's I think 5 minutes worth of scenes that could be called 'action scenes'.

There's some nice scenery and decent cinematography, and an adequate score for a B film, but the rest is all underwhelming. Maybe casting a stronger lead may have made this film more watchable, because Rico Verhoeven can't act. I'm sure part blame goes to poor cast directing, but it seems the rest of the cast held their own, so I can't say for sure. Verhoeven was just too bland, expressionless and carried himself like a big doofus. He was ok I guess in the action scenes, although hard to tell from the poor fight choreography. The female Interpol agent had a better fight scene at the end and looked more like an action star than Verhoeven. The only person who carried most of the film was Grillo, who wasn't on screen much, and he deserves much better than this mess. The writing was just a bunch of variations and cliches from much better movies in this genre. Even at a mere 90 min runtime, the pacing was slow and the story lacked urgency and was underwhelming, and just dragged onto the next predictable scene after scene.