Suite 16

Chris (Antonie Karmeling) is a violent and ignorant small-time Dutch crook. He uses his body and beautiful face to seduce old married women, and then he robs them. One day, after assaulting a friend of him, he steals his van and moves to Nice. There, he goes with an old woman to her room in a fancy hotel, and when he is robbing her, she fights with him, hurts his face and he attacks her. Chris believes he has killed her, and while escaping from the employees of the hotel and from the police, he hides himself in the suite 16. Chris meets the owner of the suite, the wealthy paraplegic Glover (Peter Postlethwaite). They make an agreement, and Chris gets paid for staying in the suite having sex with prostitutes for Peter watch it through a camera. The story finishes in a tragic way. Yesterday I watched this European movie and I found it very intriguing. The character of Chris is violent, ignorant, impulsive, alienated, athletic and makes anything for money (indeed, the guy is obsessed for money). Glover, magnificently performed by Peter Postlethwaite, is the opposite: very well controlled, intellectual (he makes many citations along the film), paraplegic and unhealthy, wealthy and very intelligent, he plans each step, like a cat playing with a mouse before eating it. The story is not well resolved: my impression is that the writer did not know how to finish the plot. This erotic, violent and intriguing film is recommended for a very specific public, who certainly will have the attention hooked along the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Aconteceu na Suite 16' (`It Has Happened in Suite 16')

Let me say from the outset that Pete Postlethwaite is one of our best character actors and that Charlea Higson is a fine writer of skewed noir thrillers (read 'Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen' if you appreciate grim, black farce). But what the hell went wrong here? A blond g*t who couldn't act his way out of a wet Kleenex, characters who've stepped out of a bad student improvisation project and sex scenes as erotic as Spam that's been left in a warm place for three weeks. I think there's some statement about voyeurism, sexuality and control trying to slip out here, but I'm too dumbfounded by the abject crapness of the entire project to remember. Are we allowed to give minus points?

In this film of sexual manipulation and head games it quickly becomes clear that Chris, the beautiful hustler on the make is living a life totally out of control. When he first meets wheelchair-bound Glover, he has the upper hand. His physicality and his threats of violence can only take him so far though. As their relationship continues, Glover more and more becomes the one in control.

Many folks reviewing this movie seem to hate it and yet I found the dynamic between the two individuals and their ambiguous sexual orientation was interesting enough to carry the plot along to its eventual conclusion.

That dynamic and the eye candy provided by Antonie Kamerling was certainly enough to keep me interested until the end.

I was thinking that this would be an american film, and it turned out to be a pale European-film. The acting is so unbelievably poor and especially the young lad is very unconvincing. It tells something that is my first DVD that I just couldn't bear watching. Waste of money,then.

There are a few semi-nude-scenes but unfortunately not strong enough to keep me coming back for this. Avoid at all costs!

Director Dominique Deruddere is a much more interesting person that this mediocre movie leads you to believe. Other than this "thing", he made some of the greatest Belgian movies ever, like "Wait until Spring Bandini", "Hombres Complicados" and especially "Crazy Love". This latter one can easily compete with prestigious American movies when it comes to drama, cinematography and plot. For "Suite 16", Deruddere had the opportunity to work with a bigger budget and some important names here and I fear that's what caused him to deliver a seemly-unfinished film. Some good dialogues and interesting content can't prevent this film from being a tedious and uninteresting social portrait. The plot introduces a young crook (Antonie Kamerling) on the run for other villains and he ends up in the suite of the wheel-chaired manipulator Glover. At first, Glover appears to be a sad and frustrated impotent guy from whom Chris can easily take advantage of but it's actually the other way around…or something. There are absolutely no exciting moments in this film and the young Dutch actor Kamerling suffers way too much from his ego. The film is stuffed with sex sequences but they're not exactly interesting or meaningful (Glover constantly hires prostitutes to make Chris stay). Suite 16 is very boring and not at all controversial, although it obviously tries to be. I advise you to skip this one and go straight for some of the other film's on Deruddere's repertoire.