Grijpstra & De Gier

Of all the obscure titles that popped up with RUTGER HAUER smeared all over it, usually released to cash in on his recent success, this is the diamond in the ruff you've been searching for. Here, he is one half of an Amsterdam cop/buddy team. The values of the culture alone make this film worthwhile. Watching Hauer's partner smoke a joint and cough, muttering "good hash" is priceless. When he's not wooing the ladies, he's exchanging banter with his partner and chasing other ladies. By no means a great film, the dubbing sees to that. But the Hauer vocal from "Dandelions is back in full effect. Made on the eve of Hauer's successful crossover to major stardom (with "NightHawks" and "Blade Runner"), this film is quite telling of things to come. Hauer's whole career is mapped out here and he is in fine form.

One of the better movies to come out of Holland in the seventies! Rijk de Gooyer and Rutger Hauer play two Amsterdam cops investigating the murder/suicide of a local drugdealer. There seem to be lots of suspects including tenant Habberdoedas, an excellent role by the late Donald Jones. For a cheap Dutch movie it has nice production values. Rutger Hauer became an international movie star not long after this film was released. Hauer had taken the role of Rinus de Gier out of respect to Dutch producer Rob Houwer, who let him star in his break through role in "SOLDIER OF ORANGE". Director Wim Verstappen made one more installment in the Grijpstra & de Gier series, called "de Ratelrat". This movie, without Rutger Hauer, was a terrible flop. Alas, what remains is a nicely restored DVD of this movie, for sale in Holland. Great cast, nice locations, great fun, great action, GO SEE IT!

One of the two movies dutch TV showed after the death of director Verstappen (the abysmal Blue Movie was the other). In this we have buddy cops Hauwer en De Gooijer (both big names in dutch cinema) having to solve a mystery including drugs and murder. And there's some strange cult involved...

The movie has it's silly moments (in particular near the ending, and with the 'lip-girl'), but after watching the crap Blue Movie was this was pretty enjoyable. This time around there's actually a story and both main actors play well (you can see Hauwer getting a big name later on) and it's fun to watch a young De Groot in action.

I guess it's a bit of dutch movie history (whatever that may be), but overall, nothing to get too excited about. 6/10.