Kidnapping Freddy Heineken (a.k.a. Kidnapping Mr. Heineken)

For F*** Magazine

KIDNAPPING FREDDY HEINEKEN (A.K.A. KIDNAPPING MR. HEINEKEN)

Director : Daniel Alfredson
Cast : Anthony Hopkins, Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten, Jemima West
Genre : Crime/Thriller
Run Time : 95 mins
Opens : 19 March 2015
Rating : NC16 - Coarse Language

            It’s human nature to be drawn to the glittery promise of get-rich-quick schemes. Even though we know deep down that all those sidebar ads on any given website have nary a grain of truth to them, we can’t help but entertain the thought that it just might be possible to make all that money so easily. In the 80s, those ads on the internet didn’t exist yet, so a group of Dutch friends, having fallen on hard times, devise a novel way to make a quick buck – kidnapping. Their target is none other than Freddy Heineken (Hopkins), chairman and CEO of Heineken International breweries. Willem Holleeder (Worthington), Cor van Hout (Sturgess), Jan Boellard (Kwanten), Frans Meijer (Mark van Eeuwen) and Martin Erkamps (Thomas Cocquerel) demand a staggering ransom of 35 million Dutch guilders for the safe return of Heineken. The case captures Europe’s attention, the public at large unaware that these “master criminals” are really just a few regular guys.

            Kidnapping Freddy Heineken is based on investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries’ account of true events. There was a 2011 Dutch film called De Heineken Ontvoering, but it was made without de Vries’ involvement and is considered to be a largely fictionalised version of the incident. With its closely-knit band of friends pulling off an ambitious caper, the theme of “honour among thieves” and an old-school filmmaking approach behind it all, Kidnapping Freddy Heineken reminded this reviewer of Ben Affleck’s crime drama The Town. Just like in that film, our gang of protagonists needs to hit that sweet spot of being “just likeable enough”, such that we can root for them even as they engage in morally reprehensible activities, having understood their motivation. Director Daniel Alfredson only partially achieves that here. While there are several moments of nail-biting intensity, the film never really takes hold. What should be a fast-paced caper instead feels plodding and by-the-numbers, the film coming off as much longer than it actually is.

            Sam Worthington, Jim Sturgess, Ryan Kwanten, Mark van Eeuwen and Thomas Cocquerel all project a degree of working class appeal, crucial to making the audience shout “down with the rich dudes, power to the plucky little guys!” However, they never seem like a cohesive team, and this is due in no small part to the fact that their accents are all over the place. They’re playing real people – real Dutch people. Worthington, Kwanten and Cocquerel are Australian, Sturgess is English and only van Eeuwen is actually Dutch. It really pulls one out of it, especially since it’s clear that director Alfredson is striving for a believable street-level grittiness. There’s also the old plot device of the pregnant wife back home, played by Jemima West, worrying about what her husband is up to. Even if this did really happen, the film’s treatment of it is a mostly unsuccessful attempt at generating pathos.

            The ace up Kidnapping Freddy Heineken’s sleeve is Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is a still as towering a presence as ever and completely commands the screen whenever he’s on it. Throughout his ordeal, Hopkins’ take on the beer baron seems more amused than anything else, displaying an unfazed façade to his kidnappers and refusing to be intimidated by them. The scene in which he calmly requests a bathrobe, slippers, a shaving kit, other amenities and even a change in the music being played is Hopkins at his coolest. This is by no means a big movie and Hopkins could’ve easily phoned it in, but he relishes the chance to play the wily Heineken, toying with his captors instead of cowering in fear from them.

            As a lo-fi true crime thriller, Kidnapping Freddy Heineken is halfway decent, but it suffers from a flagging pace and crucial lack of urgency as well as feeling somewhat miscast. One thing the film definitely gets right is Anthony Hopkins, and it is he who keeps the film watchable.

Summary: Swap out your “nice Chianti” for a bottle of Heineken – Anthony Hopkins enlivens this mostly sturdy but dull true crime thriller.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Best Offer (La Migliore Offerta)

For F*** Magazine

THE BEST OFFER (LA MIGLIORE OFFERTA)

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess, Sylvia Hoeks, Donald Sutherland
Genre: Romance, Mystery
Run Time: 131 mins
Opens: 3 April 2014
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene and Nudity)

The closest most of us hoi polloi will get to the thrill of an auction is outbidding some dude for second-hand electronics on eBay, so there’s an undeniable mystique and attraction to the glamourous upper-crust world of fine art and antique auctions. The Best Offer is a romantic mystery film set in that world, starring Geoffrey Rush as respected auction house owner Virgil Oldman. He’s hired by enigmatic young heiress Claire Ibbetson (Hoeks) to conduct an appraisal of the collection bequeathed to her by her late parents, and he becomes more and more preoccupied with the woman – who refuses to see him face to face - as the days go by. Adding to the mystery are odd gears and cogs scattered around Claire’s villa, which Virgil brings to gifted mechanic Robert (Sturgess) to piece together. The few who are close to Virgil, including his accomplice in acquiring a secret stash of master works, Billy Whistler (Sutherland), notice the usually immaculate man begin to fall apart, his life thrown into disarray by his obsession with Claire.

The Best Offer is a film of a most vexing sort, constantly on the brink of developing into something truly delicious yet refusing to take on a satisfying form at every turn. It is a particularly handsome movie to admire, cinematographer Fabio Zamarion casting a refined eye on various fancy European locales while the exact location in which most of the story takes place is left deliberately ambiguous. Living legend Ennio Morricone provides an expectedly seductive musical score as well. Writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore, of Cinema Paradiso fame, plants the seeds of a compelling mystery, but while he wants to root The Best Offer in highbrow territory, it often veers into slight luridness. It is almost as if the film is a step away from full-blown giallo hijinks, though this certainly wasn’t Torantore’s intention.

Virgil Oldman fits the archetype of a snooty, stuffy wealthy gent who is particular about his tastes, knowledgeable about his chosen field and who eats off plates and drinks out of champagne flutes monogrammed with his initials. Of course, he’s very lonely and inexperienced in the ways of romance. This reviewer found it difficult to get invested in Virgil’s relationship with Claire, whom Hoeks portrays as a fragile, troubled damsel, the self-imprisoned princess waiting for a knight to free her. There’s an element of leery voyeurism in Virgil trying to catch a glimpse of Claire, which makes his pursuit of this much younger woman all the more unsettling (note the unsubtle surname “Oldman”). Still, Rush is a commanding presence who gamely fleshes out the foibles written for his character.

Sturgess’ role is probably analogous to that of the geeky tech expert/comic relief in a conventional blockbuster, Robert helping to piece together the mechanical doodads Virgil discovers in Claire’s home. In addition, he coaches Virgil in the art of getting the girl, the young man becoming a mentor to the older one, and Sturgess is sufficiently charming. Donald Sutherland seems to have shot his part in his off-time from the Hunger Games films, still sporting President Snow’s mane and beard. As Billy Whistler, he’s meant to serve as a less cultured counterpoint to Virgil and to highlight Virgil’s dishonesty, seeing as Billy is there to help him “save” the best pieces for himself. Sutherland is well-cast in the part, even if it’s a relatively minor one.

The film’s dialogue is often laboured and verbose, lines like “everyone has moments where they prefer solitude to the multitudes” unnatural yet oddly poetic and not entirely out of place in the film’s milieu. Tornatore’s insistence on keeping the mystery inscrutable and denying the audience closure into which they can sink their teeth may make the film “arty”, but ultimately renders it less enjoyable than it could have been. We’re also going to gingerly roll out the “p word” that’s tossed around a lot when discussing films of this type – “pretentious”. To be clear, The Best Offer isn’t an annoyingly obnoxious affair and it’s a beautifully-made picture, but by wrapping its innate pulpy thriller aspects in layers of hoity-toity self-importance, it misses out on making the winning bid.

Summary: While elegant and initially beguiling, The Best Offer is also cold, stilted and not fully-formed. This reviewer is not quite sold.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Upside Down

For F*** Magazine

UPSIDE DOWN

Director:	Juan Diego Solanas
Cast:	Jim Sturgess, Kirsten Dunst, Timothy Spall
Genre:	Drama, Romance
Run Time:	100 mins
Opens:	14 February 2013
Rating:	PG

“Did you think that your feet had been bound/ by what gravity brings to the ground?” So go the lyrics to Peter Gabriel’s “Down to Earth”, from WALL-E. Just as that film was a high-concept science fiction romance, so is Upside Down.

Well, sort of.

This French-Canadian film stars Jim Sturgess as Adam, who lives on a planet much like Earth, except that it has “dual gravity” – two worlds are separated from each other, the prosperous realm of “Up Above” casting its shadow, quite literally, on the lower-class citizens of “Down Below”. Adam is from Down, and a forbidden love between him and Eden (Dunst) from Up blossoms, as they meet for secret rendezvouses between the mountains of both worlds. Following an accident, Adam believes Eden to be dead, but catches a glimpse of her on TV, and so he gets himself employed by Trans World, the mega corporation that provides the only link between the two worlds, so he can chase the girl of his dreams.

Stories about star-crossed lovers are nothing new. From the Chinese myth of the Weaver and the Cowherd to Romeo and Juliet, from Jack and Rose to Anakin and Padme, we’ve long been fascinated by the idea of two people who must cross incredible boundaries to be together. Upside Down’s premise seems ingenious and very creative at first – how about have the force of gravity separate our male and female leads? However, it turns out that there is nothing more to it than that.

There is very little character development, and we learn next to nothing about Adam and Eden throughout the film. If their love transcends the force of gravity, then why is it so thoroughly uninteresting? The symbolism is heavy-handed (the leads are called “Adam” and “Eden”), and this is yet another poor-boy-falls-love-with-rich-girl tale, a formula which the filmmakers add precious little to. Though cosmic forces are keeping the two apart, it doesn’t seem like there’s much at stake. The film struggles to stay in line with its internal logic regarding the way the “dual gravity” works, and inconsistencies mar what seems like a clever idea, eventually exposing its inherent flaws that writer-director Solanas was probably unaware of as he was crafting the story.

Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst and both talented actors, but saddled with an exposition-heavy opening narration that outlines the rules that govern this strange planet, Sturgess’s voice strains with mock wonderment. Kirsten Dunst seems rather detached from her role, though she does get to reprise some of the upside-down kissing she made famous in Spider-Man. Both have somewhat stilted line delivery that is certainly not helped by the clumsy dialogue. The only other character of note is Timothy Spall’s Bob, Adam’s colleague at Trans World who helps him find Eden – but it’s a comic role Spall can do in his sleep.

It would be a sin to completely write off Upside Down though, because credit is due to Solanas and his team for at least daring to try something different, and something so technically difficult to film. This is a very visual-effects heavy movie, what with the two opposing worlds and their respective gravities, and despite the Hollywood leads, it’s essentially a foreign film and not a big studio production, and it looks all the more impressive with that taken into consideration. It’s a stylish picture for sure, and many shots look straight out of a Chris Van Allsburg-esque picture book.

Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that is fascinating visually, but only on that level. There’s probably a compelling love story to be found somewhere in Upside Down, but it is left completely unmined, and audiences will have to make do with a simplistic and aimless plot, and a romance that never captivates. One can suspend disbelief – but what goes up must come down, and this movie does so with a clatter.

SUMMARY: Beautiful visual effects and art direction can’t stop this half-baked sci-fi fantasy romance from falling apart (and up, and down).

RATING: 2 out 5 STARS

Jedd Jong