The Heineken Kidnapping (2011)

Perfectly adorable

one of my absolute favorites!

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Having watched the American version of the same incident, it is tough to say which one you should prefer. Obviously both have their limitations, but also strong points. It's the same story, but the weight lies on different things with those movies. While this feels more like a cold, going through what happened movie, the American version was a bit flashier.This also relies even more on Heineken himself (the character/personal life) and the aftermath, which was handled fairly quickly in the US version. So both can be watched under different aspects and sort of work as companion pieces.

Years ago i read the book "De Heineken Ontvoering" by Peter R. de Vries. The book was written after many conversations with the kidnappers to get a first person feeling about the kidnapping of Freddy Heineken and his chauffeur Ab Doderer.Now anxious to see the movie about it, I watched it yesterday, but almost cannot find any reference of the real kidnapping, I followed the news in 1983 and read the book. The movie shows only highlights but the real story remains hidden on the big screen.Many details are not shown, like the blast furness is shown in one scene but not used like it was in the book, clothing and a referenced kidnapping was also discarded and many many more details missing in the movie. No suspense like the book gave, no thrilling feeling while watching, i even had trouble staying focused and awake during the movie.

The producers of this movie stressed that this movie was not strictly based on the book by Peter R. de Vries, the crime reporter. This book is (claimed to be) an accurate account of what the planning, kidnapping and aftermath actually was like. One of the greatest features of that book is the planning stage, which was incredibly meticulous and exciting. The producers decided to go their own way, but made a critical error. They assume that people know the story, and subsequently leave out key parts of the narrative. This leaves the audience guessing at times what is actually happening. The planning stage is almost completely skipped with the kidnapping taking place in the first 10 minutes of the movie. A bit later there is a scene where the kidnappers are waiting for a ransom money transfer but this goes awry. The problem is that it is not explained that this is a ransom transfer attempt, and uninformed people that are not familiar with the actual kidnapping do not have a clue what is going on. So the producers decide to NOT base the movie on the book, but trust that the plot is explained by the knowledge people have of the book. It's easy to see that this will not work, and so it doesn't. Pacing is also a problem as scenes seem to drag on forever and overall atmosphere is very negative and pressing. It seems like there is a fire burning underneath the movie and pressure is building, but it is never released soon enough to be a pay off for the audience. Acting is quite good, but the script and wooden dialogue aren't doing the actors much favor. Hauer as Heineken is a good fit, as is the main character who is a dead ringer for Willem Holleeder. It was a mistake to make a movie about a topic so famous that (almost) everyone knows the complete story and subsequently twist the story in the extent that they did. I almost wish Peter R. de Vries will go through with a script more strictly based on his book.

First of all, in Holland there was much controversy around this movie. Crime-journalist Peter R. de Vries - author of the book "De Heineken Ontvoering" - did not sell the rights of his non-fictive story to director Maarten Treurniet and was criticizing that the movie was too fictional. Also criminal Willem Holleeder (Rem Hubrechts in the movie) who is currently serving a nine year sentence for extortion and involvement in the murder of a Yugoslav drugs-dealer filed a law suit against Maarten Treurniet for portraying him as a "maniac" in the movie. The law suit he evidently lost.This served great as free promotion for the movie and the cinema was packed when I entered.I must say, I was not disappointed at all. The acting is really good - except for Heineken's wife played by Truus te Selle who was not convincing and overacted at times. The two standouts were Rutger Hauer (Heineken) and Reinout Scholten van Aschat (Rem Humbrechts / Holleeder). They both delivered stunning performances and doing so carried the movie.Not all positive though. Some scenes could have been much better, the "terror" caused by Humbrechts to Heineken was not well done.. Also it felt like it missed some scenes - the chauffeur of Heineken who was also held captive was hardly in the movie. And the way the police solved the kidnapping was not clear to me which is pretty crucial. Tracing down of the kidnappers felt a little bit rushed especially that of Jan Boelaard and Frans Meijer.Said all that.. The movie was really fun to watch, especially the acting performances and the mixture of typical "Amsterdamish" humor with some good action. I'd recommend it to anyone (above 14 y/o orso) and it continues the positive trend of dutch quality movies. I'd give it an overall rating of 7,2.