Iceberg4000

I have this movie on DVD for years, and it's an interesting, underexposed Dutch movie. Unlike what the other reviewer posted, this is not a Horror movie, and not even in the slightest sense meant to be a Horror movie (I' d call it a Film Noir). It's about the very well known Red Light District in Amsterdam, and more about the crime scene evolving behind it. Something that the many (foreign) visitors of the area won't see, a world of well-dressed backstabbers and manipulating dames. Actors Joe Maruzzo(The Sopranos) and Sylvia Kristel (Emanuelle)give the film a more international appeal. The movie is shot with a limited budget, but if you can look trough that you'll see a side of Amsterdam you have not seen before.

First of, people who seen a couple of dutch flicks know we that the movie standard in the Netherlands is quite low. Our cinema is known for bad dialog, stage actors, unnecessary naked scenes and floppy story lines. On top of it, because budgets aren't big here, the Filmfund (sponsering from the government) has to backup finance often to even get a movie made here. The same film fund is one of the reasons for the bad filmmaking: this board comes often with silly demands regarding to scripts/story lines before the money comes trough. The film fund people do not always have a background in film (like politics) and needless to say, a work of art does not get better with 20 different views on a subject. A well known example i heard was a great script got turned down because " audiences wouldn't't get it" . Resulting in adding unnecessary voice-overs (or flashbacks) explaining everything we saw in the movie, which made the film direct-to-video material.

Plan C was not supported by the Filmfund, and it is easy one of the better movies made in the Netherlands.

Ruben van der Meer and especially Ton Kas are fun to watch. René van 't Hof is also good, but unfortunately, for a smalltime crook his upper class Dutch accent annoyed me (reminded me of the bum in the movie Amsterdamned who spoke proper and decent Dutch).

The movie itself is funny and witty, and.....pretty much a l copy of Fargo. Could have been Fargo 2, although the plot isn't that complicated. From the father with a debt, the crook and the killer and a job that goes wrong to little details, shots, music, repeating phrases/dialog and if anyone doubts there's the poster in Simon's room of the Checkers game king that is either copied or a reference to the Accordeon king poster in little Scotty Lundergards room.

But, copy, reference or influenced by, this is one of the few dutch movies i would recommend to people and i will be looking forward to the director's new one. Watch it!