The Takeover

Combine the plots of the Net and Speed, locate them in modern day Rotterdam and replace originals with worse acting and direction and you'll end up with this movie.

This isn't the worst movie and I did manage to watch all the way through with some dozing off during the last inevitable action scene. To excuse my nodding I'd like to say that at this point the plot no longer makes any sense (if it ever did).

If you belong to the minority group of viewers you'll also notice that the cycling routes the main character makes are quite illogical.

The direction and editing are quite okay and the movie moves forward nicely. The acting is not cringeworthy all the time (at least to a foreign viewer) and there are some actually good scenes here and there.

Good lord is this bad. The acting is painfully forced, the hacking scenes are not even remotely realistic. Like a scrolling terminal that is too quick to read, and the guy is hammering away at a keyboard. I'M HaCKinG!! Ugh so bad.

At one point the protagonist say's she is going to have dinner with "a guy" and her lady friend (Who we never see again) ask's "is it a creep?". The protagonist then shows a mere photo of the guy at which point the lady friend says: "Oh, so not a creep" It is suggested that because the guy is cute, he's not a creep. Good lord...

The tropes, the cliches, It's all just painful to watch. I did it, so you do not have to. Skip this one.

Entertaining little Dutch thriller which doesn't outlast it's welcome. Holly Mae Brood plays Mel, a computer hacker who annoys the wrong people. She's framed for a murder she didn't commit and the only person who can help her is Buddy (Frank Lammers). It's all about facial recognition and what can happen when the technology gets in the wrong hands. Mel and her boyfriend Thomas (Geza Weisz) have to get the information that will prove her innocence to the police. She's chased by the murderous Rogers (Lawrence Sheldon) but gets away before the police capture him. It all ends in a runaway driverless bus and Mel and Thomas save the day before the bus crashes. Enjoyable little film, been done before but likeable all the same.

Since it was a Dutch movie newly released on Netflix we were curious to see this movie. But it turned out to be disappointing. The storyline is straight out of fairytale and has nothing to do with reality and therefore makes it totally unbelievable. Acting is mediocre at best and there is a lot of running and saying "f#@k" all the time.

It makes the movie one dimensional and more like a (bad) cartoon.

Sadly this movie fits in a long row of Netflix productions we're quantity trumps quality.

To end with a positive note: the city of Rotterdam gets a great promotion with all its highlights, so if this movie inspires you with inspiration to vist this citty something good came out of this production.

I always find it amusing, when US "critics" write about "realism" in a European production, whereas approx. 75 per cent of Hollywood productions are everything BUT realistic. This goes also time and again and often enough for poor acting and directing.

The pace in this flick from the Netherlands ist OK, the acting maybe average, direction is OK, the storyline could be worse, agreed.

And, so? It's not a Hollywood-blockbuster (whatever THAT is supposed to be) and we do not have the humongous budgets over here to pull a flick like TOP GUN MAVERICK.

Nuthin' personal though, so chill.

Greetings from good 'ole Europe.