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Reviews
Stöld (2024)
Slower than you might like great scenery
On the good side - the scenery is great.
The story of local Swedes trying to drive out indigenous Sami is sadly replicated all over the world, the Sami are trying to hang on desperately to a way of life increasingly untenable in the 21st century and the non-native locals hate the special privileges the natives have.
Also throw in a mining company wanting to dig the place up for completeness.
It takes about 2 decades, but the evil guy shooting reindeer is finally defeated. This is the very definition of a slow burn and nothing like an American shoot-em-up.
The bad - Actual Sami actors were used, no dark-haired English woman pretending to be an Arctic native as in Smila's Sense of Snow. The issue here is that is seems sometimes like a school play, the actors seem to be very obviously acting.
The other frustrating thing is the Sami seem incredibly passive. Maybe they really are that way, but an American watching this would be thinking how short your life expectancy would be if you got repeatedly caught going to the local ranch and shooting the cows.
The other annoying thing is every now and then they throw in a "Oh no, it is too hot or too cold, how can the reindeer cope with climate change". Not that reindeer don't have issues with climate change, but it is almost like there is a insert climate message here spot in the script every 15 minutes whether is makes sense right then or not.
Worth watching, but don't expect a Swedish version of a range-war action movie.
Hightown (2020)
ended too soon
I would have given this a 9 except it ended at a random spot in the middle of the plot and there is no season 4 planned. What the heck???
Imagine if in Gone With The Wind Rhet Butler said "Frankly" and then the credits rolled.
* they are making me write more. Lots and lots of sex scenes. Parts of the male anatomy not usually seen in action outside of a porn movie.
** Somehow a cop is living with a suspect in one crime and the ex-fiance of a crime boss and they let him keep his job?
What more to write, as is usual in most cop shows you would hope basically NONE of them would be employed by a real life police department!
The Royal Hotel (2023)
NOTHING HAPPENS
The setup is good, two cute young and somewhat clueless backpacking girls from Canada get jobs at a bar in a mining town out in the middle of nowhere in Australia.
The town is full of horny, usually drunk, rowdy, and in many cases emotionally damaged men and apparently not any other a single woman under 60 within 100 miles. The bartender himself is falling down drunk half the time. This is the perfect setup for a thriller/horror movie where of course bad things will happen and the girls will have to escape from some horrible Outback psycho-killer.
Sadly, no such luck. The men behave horribly and apparently there are no police in this town ever. Horribly as in nasty language and a few that look capable of violence, but no one actually DOES anything. Liv, played by Jessica Henwick, likes to drink herself into an almost falling down state and has no judgement whatsoever about going off with unsavory miners. Becky, played by Julia Garner, is forever trying to save her from herself.
Towards the end of the movie the drunk bartender is down for the count and hauled off to a hospital by the cook. The girls decide to - on their own without even the minimal protection of the pub owner being there, run the pub for two nights, have a huge party, and then leave with whatever money they can grab. This of course looks like a setup for the final battle, but it fizzles out. The drunk miners just leave the bar when told to. Two of them are fighting over Liv, so the disgusted Liv and Becky *light the pub on fire* and take off down the road with their gear, presumably to walk 100 miles to the next town. The miners don't rise up in outrage over their only entertainment being torched. No cops ever come around to see about this arson. No one cares. I thought NOW we're getting somewhere, the evil miners will be chasing these girls Mad Max style or SOMETHING. I am thinking OK now, here is where it finally gets good and the credits roll!
Infinite Storm (2022)
terrrible waste of fake snow
Naomi Watts is apparently the one-person rescue squad for the area, she does not seem to have any other job.
She hikes up what is supposedly Mt. Washington but looks nothing like it, gets plastic snow in her mouth a lot, doesn't seem real bothered with a hat or glove in a winter storm, and finds a suicidal guy sitting there being cold in shorts and sneakers.
She hauls him back down, which turns out to be about 5 times longer than the climb up for some reason and crosses obstacles not seen on the way up. All the dialog is "John, are you OK" and "John, we have to get down". Really, the word OK is used for about 75% of the total word count.
They end up in the water, not seen on the way up, and despite being hypothermic BEFORE getting soaking wet in below freezing weather, they just get out and keep going. In real life they would lose the ability to move in about 2-4 minutes.
They get back to the parking lot and 98% dead John suddenly springs back to life and tears off in his car. They meet later and exchange a monotone few words. The End.
Overspel (2011)
Loved it mostly, really maybe 9.5
I am not going to go over the entire plot, just a few reasons why it doesn't get a 10.
1. Overuse of Iris's face. Sylvia Hoeks has an extremely attractive face, her other job is being a model. They seem to more and more from series 1 to 3 to linger on just showing her face. We get it, she is really pretty.
2. Elsie, the cheated-on wife, is really very attractive and seems a really good wife and mother, I am not sure what the motivation to cheat on her actually is.
3. Iris seems surprised at the collateral damage from leaving her prosecutor husband for the lawyer defending the gangster he is after and likewise the gangster-lawer didn't really think through dumping the DAUGHTER of the gangster, i.e. His father-in-law, to get with the prosecutor's wife. Can people actually be this horny and/or this dumb as adults?
4. In one scene Dutch police continuously interrogate a brain-damaged person until he breaks down with no lawyer present. Whatever they got out of him would be thrown out of a USA trial like used Kleenex.
5. Iris (ear-is in Dutch) seems happy with her job and husband and child, but for some reason will toss it all for random sex with some guy?
6. In one scene a character gets into a single-engine Piper aircraft to go from Holland to Panama. They got get about 800 miles and then have to swim a few thousand more!