Issue de secours

And here we have another try from a Dutch Filmmaker trying to go international with a third rate action flick. We 've got two American actors, once known for making better movies who look like they are in for the money, we have a kid with more balls than Rambo and some cheap looking stunts looking like they have been cut from a Hong Kong action flick. Only watch this movie to see what is wrong with Dutch movies, there is not one thing that is worth mentioning and that is rare, but what do you want with a director best known for the infamous "Flodder" series. this movie sank to the bottom of the movie graveyard and nobody did see it in the cinema's , with a good reason, do not be fooled with the trailer.

When a so called lovable little girl is involved in a suspense story,what do you expect? Certainly not the unexpected! You can see in her eyes that the villains will not get the upper hand.The more helpless she seems ,the stronger she is when danger comes around.Dumb but not dumb! The supporting cast is wasted:William Hurt is cast as the father and all he has to do is wait ;Jennifer Tilly 's part is not much more exciting:all she's got to do is bemoan over her unfortunate daughter's fate.You will guess who pulls the string as soon as that villain appears on the screen.

Only the first scenes in the hotel can ,at a pinch,generate some suspense.But after that,it's downhill.The worst is that horrible "singer" ,pedophile at that!On the other hand ,Dennis Leary's junkie is quite nice.

Get "Amsterdamned" instead!

...by watching this tripe! I waited nearly 3 years to see this film because I really enjoy William Hurt's performances, so you can imagine how shocked and (yes) disturbed I was when I began watching it on cable last night and saw how unbelievably BAD he is in this movie. He has a ridiculous on-again off-again Southern accent, and he cannot say one single line of dialogue that sounds convincing.

The material he's given is horrendous, it's true -- badly paced, thoroughly uneven in every way: the plot veers from pathetic stabs (no pun intended) at black comedy to morbid, monotonous melodrama and car chases, with not one truly satisfying moment in the entire film. Jennifer Tilly, surprisingly, came off very well here - she was believable and sympathetic throughout. Actually, there WAS one satisfying moment -- when this torturous exercise in trashy tedium finally wrapped up and the end titles rolled on the screen. William Hurt must have wanted to visit Amsterdam really bad.

In the first 20 minutes of this flick I began to wonder if there was an Amsterdam in the U.S. Not one major or minor role in this movie had a Dutch accent. This distracted me from enjoying an otherwise interesting story set in one of Europe's oldest cities.

Distraction then led to befuddlement. The Script writer seemed fixated on Amsterdam's reputation as a purveyor of child porn and pedophilia. There was more than a couple of instants were characters made reference to their own awful proclivity.

Add to that gruesome and astonishingly gratuitous scenes of violence which were oddly incongruous (ie. the ambulance wheel rolling over a para-medic's head mashing it like an over-ripe pumpkin.)

But most of all. I could not believe Oscar-winner, William Hurt or even Jennifer Tilly and Dennis Leary could associate themselves with this strange and uneven film.

I'm in the middle of watching this turd on cable right now.

Despite all the good actors, all the performances are stiff as hell. William Hurt's performance is especially strange, with this bizarre southern drawl.

The feeble attempts at "humor" only serve to undermine any chance of generating suspense. Who the hell is supposed to scared of this half-wit hitman?

And the Marilyn Manson manque, oh wait, he's dead already. Good.

I'm going to sleep. Don't give a rat's ass how it ends (like I couldn't guess).