paulvancraeynest

Although somewhat less then "Undercover", I enjoyed it very much. Frank Lammers is by far the best Dutch actor. The character of Ferry Bouman is really him.

In Undercover, he played the wealthy, merciless and grumpy drug lord. In this prequel, we see him starting his career. He is ambitious and fearless, and does whatever it takes to take his place in the ruthless drug business.

His soft spot is his girlfriend Danielle, also well played by Elise Schaap. He realizes he would be emotionally lost without her, while she tries to come to terms, when she realises her man a merciless criminal. I recommend.

The first episode is good. Things go downhill from there. After a terrorist attack, wounded people are everywhere, but armed cops and ambulances are forbidden to come close, as there might still be some danger. I have no idea if this could really happen, but it reminded me of the Uvalde shooting. The protagonist, a heroic cop, is an an Afghan immigrant. A reason for flashbacks to his childhood, with stereotypical violence.

He knows all about the terrorists, as they somehow all grew up together in the same village.

Instead of informing his colleagues, he does the "rogue cop" thing and goes after them on his own. For the rest of the series, he is running around, chasing the terrorists while being chased himself by all the other cops.

Some evil cops think he's a terrorist himself and they, inexplicably, kidnap his Dutch wife and beat up her old father. We get the trope of the abandoned warehouse, were people can be locked up and tortured at will. The bad cop starts torturing the hero's wife and child. He was in Afghanistan himself and was tortured by the Taliban, which is supposed to justify all of this and the other bad cops agree.

The good guy of course saves the day, rescues his wife and child and catches the bad guys. For good measure, we get the trope of the bomb countdown, with the intrepid explosives expert cutting the right wire at the last moment.

It shows what the world is. Maybe exaggerated, but not all that much. The reaction to the climate change and covid is similar. Netflix did make a good movie.

The typical movie about people locked up in an enclosed space and weird things happening. Some go mad or have a hidden agenda and one by one they get killed. The Godzilla thing at the end is completely ridiculous.

Very good. A raw story about the relentless Moroccon drug gangs in Amsterdam. The characters are well developed. The acting is very good, quite uncommon for Dutch movies.

This series shows how WW1 started. Nobody actually wanted war, but everybody thought someone else will stop it. When it started, there was no way back.

The characters act very well. The protagonist, a young woman, gives up a lucrative career as a lawyer to become a public prosecutor. She wants to make a difference and fight crime, rather than setting criminals free.

She gets in difficult situations, sometimes there is a dilemma whether to do what is right or what seems the best thing to do.

The story is confusing, as most people are not so familiar with the events in Indonesia 75 years ago. The plot is thin and unrealistic. A lot of senseless cruelty. The wooden acting is typical for Dutch movies.

Very good. A raw story about the relentless Moroccon drug gangs in Amsterdam. The characters are well developed. The acting is very good, quite uncommon for Dutch movies.

The racing scenes are very good. Apart from that, the plot is thin and far fetched. Any drug trafficker would try to behave as inconspicuous as possible. But here, the trafficker is told to keep a ridiculous schedule, ride at insane speeds and pass the road tolls without paying. That seems a good way to attract the attention of the cops.

I watched it some 3 times now. Also, I enjoy chess more now.

I expected more. The 1976 movie is far better. The characters are like cardboard cut-outs. The fight scenes are more or less ok, but CGI still looks cartoonesk. The fight scenes are overdone and unreal.

At last a real war movie. This is almost as good as Das Boot, seen from the other side. The movie shows the fear and the tension of the crew, having to ride out the dangerous crossing of the Atlantic. Those men were no superheroes, just ordinary men, thrown into a situation that no man can withstand. They have no time for chitchat, or jokes, or moral discussions. They were fighting for their lifes. The slightest misjudgment could make the difference between life and death. No time is wasted on romance, like in Pearl Harbor, or on sentiment and yee-hawing, like in Midway. No patriotic speeches. All they did was survive. The best war movie since a very long time.

This movie is amazingly good. Although a bit old fashioned. The plane scenes are very good, much better than the CGI today. The end is surprisingly grim, as we are used to Hollywood happy endings. Many movies would have the hero beating the whole North Korean army on his own. But this is real. He crash landed in enemy territory. A helicopter was sent in a futile attempt to rescue the man. The helicopter was shot down as it touched the ground. One of the helicopter crew got killed. The remaining men tried a desperate defense but died very soon.

I saw this movie on TV some 25 years ago. I had no idea but I got captivated and watched it until the end. It made such an impression upon me but I never knew the title. Just recently, surfing on the net, I read something about it and I knew it was this movie. I downloaded it and watched it again. It is one of the best ever. The cast is very good. No useless special effects, no sentimentality, no love stories. Just a very real picture of life on this ship. This is as good as "Das Boot". Why don't they make movies like that anymore?

All we can say is that this movie shows some nice landscape photography and that the cast is good. But the plot is a disaster. It starts with a stagecoach, equipped with a gatling gun, being held up by some outlaws. One of the outlaws is such a sharpshooter that he can shoot the drivers of the moving coach from half a kilometre away. Then Russell Crowe, the chief outlaw shoots a Pinkerton man in the belly, while saying he has no intention of killing him. He then shoots one of his own men for being careless. Christian Bale, a troubled farmer and civil war veteran shows up with his sons. The outlaws don't even think of shooting these witnesses but just borrow their horses. The Russell Crowe, for some reason goes to town and has a chat with the farmer. He pays him for the inconvenience and for the cattle that somehow died. The Pinkerton man with the bullet in his guts is operated on, 19th century style, with no anaesthesia whatever. He doesn't mind, because it "wasn't the first time he got shot". Although the doctor says he lost a lit of blood (yes, he got shot in the guts and was carried for hours, bleeding), he gets on his horse to catch the bad guy right away. Blood loss is exaggerated. The Jehovah's witnesses will confirm that. Instead of running away, like outlaws do, Russell Crowe has a chat with the barmaid, long enough for the sheriff to catch him. The farmer is then promised $200 to help bring the outlaw to justice. Why don't they shoot or hang him on the spot? He is a sadistic psychopath, his gang already did 22 hold ups and killed countless people in the process. Some guy actually proposes killing him there and then. But it turns out that the townspeople are afraid of the gang. To prove this, the second in command of the outlaws threatens that the town is going to "burn", and to make himself clear, he shoots a few innocent citizens. Why don't they free him at the same time? Then they send a decoy stagecoach off, carrying a guy disguised as Russell Crowe (they change hats). The outlaw gang is not fooled so easily. Outlaw enjoys a cozy dinner at the farmers home. He is the perfect guest, saying grace and chatting about the civil war. They even let this murderer alone for a chat with farmer's wife. Farmer's wife, notwithstanding the hardships of trying to make a living and raising a family in the Arizona desert, looks like a model. Nobody notices him smuggling a fork in his shirt. At night, outlaw sticks said fork in one of his captors throat, killing him. No need to tie him up any better of course. He then overpowers the healed Pinkerton man, and disarms the whole posse,with his handcuffs still on. He throws Pinkerton in a ravine. The farmer's son arrives to save the day. It appears that the farmer lost his leg in the civil war but he doesn't even limp. With one he runs, jumps and rides. The posse generously forgives outlaw for killing two of their men and head into Indian territory. The entrance is marked by 2 dead bodies. At night, they set up camp and are attacked by the Indians. The Indians somehow miss their target. Russell Crowe, still handcuffed, crawls up behind the Indians and cuts their throats. Then Russell Crowe escapes again, with the posses horses, and arrives at a railroad construction camp. Most workers are Chinese, wearing Chinese hats. When he tries to convince a female Chinese blacksmith to undo his handcuffs, he is caught by the railroad men. The posse arrives at the camp and find the outlaw being tortured (with electricity, these are state of the art thugs). They have to keep a straight face, claiming that the man that walked in the camp with their horses is actually supposed to be their prisoner. And that he should not be tortured. One of the railroad men's brother was killed by outlaw, so he prefers to kill him himself. The clumsy posse then beats the whole railroad gang by beating a shovel and off they go again, with outlaw. Eventually they arrive at the town where the train stops (3:10 to Yuma). Instead of keeping him at the station to wait for the train, they prefer to rent the bridal suite (I'm not making this up) in the local hotel. There they get help from the local marshall and his deputies. In the meantime, the outlaw's cronies also arrive. They promise $200 to every citizen that kills of the marshall's men and free outlaw. The cityfolk happily comply. The marshall turns out not to be so though after all, and they decide to surrender at once. Outlaw is allowed to appear at the window to inform his gang about the escape plans. The marshall and his men come out to surrender and get killed at once by the outlaws. Then the farmers decide to take outlaw to the train. He has to run a gauntlet through town, with citizens and outlaws shooting at them. Farmer has one leg, but has no trouble running and jumping from roof to roof with his prisoner, shooting his assailants left and right. The second-in-command-outlaw is afraid the townsfolk might accidentally shoot his boss, so he shoots a few of them to make his point. For some reason, outlaw follows the farmer all the way to the train station. The train is late. Then for some reason, outlaw decides he prefers to take the train, to his trail and inevitable hanging, rather than running away to his gang. When his second in command outlaw shoots farmer, outlaws kills him and his whole own gang. He then gets into the train and lets himselfes locked in a cage. I gather that it is a movie, and that one can't expect the plot to be flawless (if all characters were doted with logic, the movie would be 2 hours shorter), but this.... Russell Crowe is a good actor, but not for the role of a remorseless killer.

I saw this movie several times. I am even looking for it on vain now, on DVD or download. What I liked most is that it gives an insight in the world of the Ulster loyalists. In most movies, the NI troubles are depicted as a struggle of the noble IRA fighters against the evil British opressors. (In the name of the father, Bloody sunday, Some mother's son, Hunger,...) In a few other movies, the IRA members are depicted as ruthless terrorists (The devil's own, Patriot games). What all these movies have in common is that the loyalists are not even mentioned. Nothing Personal shows the true nature of the conflict, as a bloody and cruel gang war between the two parties, and on top of that, bloody internal conflicts in the two camps as well.