Issue de secours

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.

This is really much more of a comedy than it is of a thriller which does not mean it is bad. The action is OK, the story is OK, the actors are OK with some minor faults here and there, but who cares. The best thing here though is that it is quite funny. Never have I seen such a dumb and luckless hitman as in this one. I believe Corey Johnson who plays the hitman called Nasty has the best performance here although he doesn't act like Oscar – worthy he surely brings the most fun to the viewers. The kid, who actually is the lead character, is OK too and she brings a Home Alone feeling to this film.

The only thing that made me a bit curious is whether people in the USA really think that Amsterdam is like the worst place on earth because I mean, how could they? Are not NY, LA and so on much worse? Or is that just something we over here feel. Well I at least can say this. I've been to Amsterdam at least 3 times and I'm still living to report to you about this film, so how bad can Amsterdam really be.

Not bad, but I've seen better.

6 out of 10

Maybe Dutch isn't the world's most beautiful language, but neither is English, and it's really sad that a Dutch director makes a film in Holland were everyone speaks English. I could understand it if the director was American, but not now. Apart from that, this isn't agood movie, and some of the lines are really bizarre (f. ex the scene in the elevator:

• Malaria, moving north! - El nino, sir. Is it funny? No. And it isn't more understandable because it's in English. According to this movie, everyone in Amsterdam seems to be either prostitutes or drug atticts or both, except a few policemen and hotel managers

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.

...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.