The Dutch feature film Ome Cor reached us in 2022 and not without success. In addition to the leading role of the peculiar Cor Kalkman, better known as Ome Cor, Martin van Waardenberg also took on the direction together with Peter Verhage. Van Waardenberg has already made several strong films in recent years, but he still could not surpass De marathon. Now we certainly do not assume that this sequel to Ome Cor will come anywhere close to that, but perhaps it can keep up with Ome Cor from 2022 a little. The Rotterdam humor will splash off again, just like in the previous part and Cor ends up in the most impossible situations and of course makes things unnecessarily difficult for himself again.
Yet Opa Cor turns out to be less than his predecessor and above all neither fish nor fowl. The first part actually struggled with this problem as well, only the story worked well there so that it could be covered up a bit. Because what is the film actually trying to be? It is a comedy, but it is not really a comedy. The humor is too minimal for that and actually too bland. Is the film a drama then? Yes, on the one hand it is, but on the other hand it is too absurd to really be considered a drama. This second part makes that clear, certainly in terms of absurdity. Cor gets a grandson named Coentje and at the football club he loses Coentje because Cor is drinking and playing cards. Of course he gets into a big fight with his daughter Carola, who forbids him to hang out with Coentje. When Cor tells his dramatic story in the bar, full of pity for himself, he is noticed by a dark figure and that is actually where the film really goes astray.
Cor fakes his own death in order to be able to have his recently taken out life insurance paid out. He eventually ends up in Suriname, where Cor manages to get himself into a lot of trouble by letting the hotel bill get so high. He ends up in a situation where he has to toil for the hotel and has to work on a banana plantation to settle his bill. Eventually, Cor ends up in the Netherlands in an institution for people with behavioral problems, where you have to deal with a kind of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that actually makes no sense at all. The film is fortunately not so bad that it is impossible to watch, because it does have its moments. But Grandpa Cor could have been better if the approach had been a bit more serious and a bit better developed.
Grandpa Cor is a film with an identity crisis, that does not really know whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama. It never really gets fun, but the film is too absurd to stir up emotions and grab you as a drama. In any case, it does not make you long for a possible third part, although this film is not unwatchable either. A whole range of famous Dutch people and especially well-known Rotterdammers pass by again, as actually happened in Uncle Cor. The Feyenoord aspect may be indispensable in a film like this, but it does not do much good because it adds little to the bigger picture. The rest of it all has to do with Rotterdam of course, which is not a bad thing, but which has no added value, especially in this film.
