De Kollega's maken de brug!

I was a big fan of the series. I consider the series as one of the best 'comedy' series been made in Belgium. 'Comedy' between brackets because the series give more depth and realism. Made almost 50 years ago but still very much enjoyable. Reason: the setting is very simple, a government office (pre-dating 'the office' by decades), the characters are very well written, the dialogues superb, realistic, recognisable and funny. The series became so popular the (national) broadcasting company (BRT) cancelled the show after 3 series 'because BRT must remain a serious institution and cannot become to popular'... strange days in the late seventies/eightties. Anyway, after the series stopped the writer - who, as I recall, had written more scripts and stories - wrote this movie. When it came out reviews were bad, critics used to break down every belgian movie that came out those days. So... I never saw it in the movie theatres, and just recently, after decades, saw the movie the first time. And well, much better than I feared, the mixture of the characters - even expanded by adding the home and families - and mixture of comedy and tragedy make this movie very enjoyable. The setting again is very simple, the camera-work simple but effective, the acting first class (such a bunch of great actors!). Probably the lack of budget limited the creativity of the crew, but this - in time - worked out perfect. Less is more. The only thing that's outdated is the music, typical soft 80ies soundtrack.

Let me start off by saying this movie was perfectly watchable. The actors and actresses do a solid job in this film. I haven't seen the series that this movie is from and i don't plan to.

Long story short, a group of workers are stuck in an office space on the fourth floor. No elevator down, no ladder. They now hold out until they find a way out or are rescued. There are some funny scenes, some shots which are actually quite nice and the typical foolishness you find in any film like this.

The film hurt itself however, by lacking in believability. Any film stretches realism one way or another, but i can't believe more people would hear there pleas for help as they shout from the window. This sometimes ruined the entire thing for me, which is unfortunate.

All in all it's decent, don't get me wrong. Just, alas, very by the books.