Skimming rapidly over choices of what to watch I stumbled upon this little diamond in the rough. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find anything to watch these days. The entertainment industry has gone from bad to worse in recent years notably in terms of quantity versus quality. There's no shortage of what to watch but most of it's terrible. This title could have easily been looked over and lost in the thick sauce of half baked productions. But no, it came in much better than expected. And my demands are very high seeing that I lived in Amsterdam in the late 70s. I am also a stickler for historical accuracy. This one has it right nicely down to the old pre-euro currency denominations in Holland and Belgium as well as Amsterdam cop cars and uniforms of the era. Even the landmarks of a more trivial nature hold their own such as the location of one of the city's hospitals and a "telefoon" booth overlooking a RLD canal in the Jordaan (don't quite recall if there was one). The car models, license plates and taxi meters all accurate. Long story short this crime drama was incredibly accurate and directed by someone who takes great pride in depicting Amsterdam of the 80s. There were a few too many generic labyrinth like non existent alleyway scenes but otherwise historical punctuality in my opinion. I would have liked to have seen a few more easily identifiable streets such as Warmoesstraat and Zeedijk depicted but close enough. The plot built around a Buddy cop team with a ball busting chief was also quite formulaic. But not to worry there's a pretty decent twist thrown in and the plot layers mesh well too. All in all a groot thumbs up voor this one.
Review of Baantjer het begin
