Bellicher: Cel (2012) User Reviews

Pawn in a game

[blogurious · 6/10 · 5 October 2012]

An almost perfect life can suddenly be transformed into a nightmare you might wish you could wake up from. But when everything leads to believe you are nothing but the culprit, problems can take a lot longer to fix.

"Bellicher: Cel" is a good Dutch thriller that deals with stolen identity and the numerous wrong situations that make the victim distrust anyone trying to help. Making justice with our own hands is sometimes the first thought after being denied assistance from the police, but that usually complicates the problem even further and the only way out is proving by one way of the other that you are nothing but innocent. And if in the end everything looks like a government misunderstanding, you realize you are nothing but a pawn in a game of political chess. Good entertainment.

about identity and identity theft

[myriamlenys · 5/10 · 17 December 2019]

A man called Michael Bellicher suddenly finds himself accused of a hit-and-run accident which killed a child. While he tries to prove his innocence, he discovers that his once orderly life has descended into chaos : bankers wave real estate contracts he's never seen and accuse him of not paying his debts, and so on. It's clear that someone somewhere has been playing fast and loose with his identity...

"Bellicher : Cel" has the general feel of a television series, or part of a television series, compiled and compressed into a single movie. (I gather that this is exactly what happened, but I bow to the superior knowledge of Dutch viewers and reviewers.) Anyhow, the movie feels crowded and overbusy, because it has a complicated plot which treats various modern themes at once - in this case, mainly the way in which identities can be switched, deleted or stolen, the way in which secret services can go rogue and the way in which citizens can be spied upon, both by the government and by fellow citizens.

Moreover, the movie goes for the "never a dull moment" approach, meaning that it overflows with confrontations, tricks, pursuits, executions, reunions, revelations, interrogations and so on. As a viewer you've barely figured out who or what is character number 6, when you're already confronted with the hidden agenda of character number 7 or the cunning deception launched by character number 8. Like I've said, it all feels crowded, as if enough material for half a dozen episodes were crammed into one movie ; it also feels superficial. For instance, there's little in the protagonist's relationship with his adolescent son that feels real or moving.

It's a pity, since some of the elements are stylish, topical or interesting. For instance, the movie contains quite a good pursuit through a vast glasshouse area where uniform vegetables are raised. The movie also has a nicely sleek and modern look.

I'm not sure that I'll remember this thriller a month from now...

Unsatisfactory TV-thriller.

[punishmentpark · 3/10 · 13 June 2015]

Daan Schuurmans - not my favorite actor, to put it mildly, but I remembered seeing bits from the Bellicher miniseries that came before this, and didn't find it to be all bad. So I had a go at this TV-movie.

The plot is completely silly, mixing two big and real issues (identity theft and a government interfering with civil rights for the sake of national security) into a laughable premise, with a lot of terrible dialogues.

Schuurmans is again unconvincing, and the rest of the cast is not impressive either. Anna Drijver and Anniek Pheifer are easy on the eye, so that's a plus.

'Bellicher: cel' is at times quite agreeable in a cinematographic sense, and there are some pretty good moments action-wise.

All in all, quite unsatisfactory. 3 out of 10.