It's a WW2 movie made in Holland with a huge budget. But it's sorta a comedic movie making fun of all these events a they happen. Basically a light version of Catch-22. The humor here is created via silliness in the situations. Nothing is taken seriously. The actors smile and do weird movements. The blood is not even fully red. The interactions are all silly and the puns and jokes are the center element here.
It's a spy story based on real events, I don't know how much of it is real. Rutger Hauer plays the stupid Hollander who suddenly decides to join the resistance with his friend. It's never explained why they do it. But there is not much tension to it as all scenes are played off as jokes. Still, it's fairly fun main plot because the sets are that great. The sets are 80% of what makes this movie interesting. The plot, acting, and everything else is just okay.
The weird things are for example many sex scenes where you of course only see boobs and not much else. We see excrement scenes, puking, weird sex in the open. It's all stuff that would happen, but it at times looks terrible on camera. Sex in the private setting is fine if the scene is properly made. But here you have 2 scenes where a couple is doing it without hiding. And on top of that the other sex scenes are weird plot wise too like a scene where Rutger Hauer just walks into the room of his friend and his friend's girlfriend after sex. Why is this here?
Then there is the plot centered around the protagonist that also doesn't work. He sleeps with 2 different girlfriends of his best friends. That's a bit much. This also does happen, but these traits in him make him less than sympathetic. One is even engaged to his friend. Then he's stupid and stumbles around here. He's not a superspy. Even his remarks reveals great ignorance and he doesn't seem to solve any problem. He for example tries to assassinate the top Hollander in England because the Germans tricked him. And he seems to be tricked and outplayed all the time. The whole Holland resistance movement is totally outmaneuvered by the Germans. You just see a bunch of spoiled men make mistake after mistake. And Rutger Hauer just luckily gets away with it because he is just not caught. It's never quite clear what he even did at any point. Seems like a pointless soldier. The queen escaped to England and then sends for the top men in Holland to be with her for some reason to "rebuild democracy" whatever it means. The Germans intercept the communication because there is a traitor in the resistance movement so they kill or capture the whole group. That plan was obviously pointless. We see Rutger Hauer chase the traitor to save the group, but he only finds them at the very end minutes before they are killed. This whole plan and mission that takes him like 40 minutes leads to nothing and it's the only thing he actually did as a spy. This is at the very end of the movie so the first hour and a half are just them stumbling around and making mistakes. Then this big spy mission appears and it leads to absolutely nothing. So what did he even achieve? What's the point of the movie? It's 149 minutes long and as we just jump from event to event you get confused about the point and plot. It's way too long for this story. They should have created some more plot focused story here to make it more interesting. And then removed the weird humor and nastiness. It could have been great as the setting and sets are great. I just wanted him to succeed at small missions. Even if they are not historically accurate they could have added stuff that is behind the scenes of sorts. Like him killing some spy in secret or giving documents to England, again in secret. Stuff that wouldn't appear in any history book, but could have happened. Just some success somewhere.
It's worth checking out if you like WW2 sets, which I do. But it's not really a movie that works overall even though it doesn't become overly dull. It dragged out and became boring, but I always wanted to finish watching it after some breaks. Zwartboek (2006) fixed most of these problems. The same director understood that the setting should be a bit more serious. The sets are not as amazing as it's a newer movie so it's harder to find these old houses and streets. But the story is spy focused and proactive. And the natural stuff like the sex scenes is done better as it's not done to confuse the viewer. I just wanted a spy story that lead somewhere concrete.
It's a spy story based on real events, I don't know how much of it is real. Rutger Hauer plays the stupid Hollander who suddenly decides to join the resistance with his friend. It's never explained why they do it. But there is not much tension to it as all scenes are played off as jokes. Still, it's fairly fun main plot because the sets are that great. The sets are 80% of what makes this movie interesting. The plot, acting, and everything else is just okay.
The weird things are for example many sex scenes where you of course only see boobs and not much else. We see excrement scenes, puking, weird sex in the open. It's all stuff that would happen, but it at times looks terrible on camera. Sex in the private setting is fine if the scene is properly made. But here you have 2 scenes where a couple is doing it without hiding. And on top of that the other sex scenes are weird plot wise too like a scene where Rutger Hauer just walks into the room of his friend and his friend's girlfriend after sex. Why is this here?
Then there is the plot centered around the protagonist that also doesn't work. He sleeps with 2 different girlfriends of his best friends. That's a bit much. This also does happen, but these traits in him make him less than sympathetic. One is even engaged to his friend. Then he's stupid and stumbles around here. He's not a superspy. Even his remarks reveals great ignorance and he doesn't seem to solve any problem. He for example tries to assassinate the top Hollander in England because the Germans tricked him. And he seems to be tricked and outplayed all the time. The whole Holland resistance movement is totally outmaneuvered by the Germans. You just see a bunch of spoiled men make mistake after mistake. And Rutger Hauer just luckily gets away with it because he is just not caught. It's never quite clear what he even did at any point. Seems like a pointless soldier. The queen escaped to England and then sends for the top men in Holland to be with her for some reason to "rebuild democracy" whatever it means. The Germans intercept the communication because there is a traitor in the resistance movement so they kill or capture the whole group. That plan was obviously pointless. We see Rutger Hauer chase the traitor to save the group, but he only finds them at the very end minutes before they are killed. This whole plan and mission that takes him like 40 minutes leads to nothing and it's the only thing he actually did as a spy. This is at the very end of the movie so the first hour and a half are just them stumbling around and making mistakes. Then this big spy mission appears and it leads to absolutely nothing. So what did he even achieve? What's the point of the movie? It's 149 minutes long and as we just jump from event to event you get confused about the point and plot. It's way too long for this story. They should have created some more plot focused story here to make it more interesting. And then removed the weird humor and nastiness. It could have been great as the setting and sets are great. I just wanted him to succeed at small missions. Even if they are not historically accurate they could have added stuff that is behind the scenes of sorts. Like him killing some spy in secret or giving documents to England, again in secret. Stuff that wouldn't appear in any history book, but could have happened. Just some success somewhere.
It's worth checking out if you like WW2 sets, which I do. But it's not really a movie that works overall even though it doesn't become overly dull. It dragged out and became boring, but I always wanted to finish watching it after some breaks. Zwartboek (2006) fixed most of these problems. The same director understood that the setting should be a bit more serious. The sets are not as amazing as it's a newer movie so it's harder to find these old houses and streets. But the story is spy focused and proactive. And the natural stuff like the sex scenes is done better as it's not done to confuse the viewer. I just wanted a spy story that lead somewhere concrete.