Buitenspel

I got to see the movie on the avant-premiere and got there with mediocre expectations. From what I've seen earlier from Jan Verheyen, director of 'Buitenspel', I think he's representable as the average Belgian movie maker: he works with weak story lines, decent filming and acting. Belgian movie industry isn't doing well.

The film itself only confirmed what I was expecting from it. The plot was never surprising and kind of cheesy, the acting was good enough, and the camera work disappointing. As I had participated in this film as an extra in the crowd, I noticed there had been some severe cutting in the material that was made. Quite a shame.

To summarize: Verheyen does nothing more than delivering a film that deserves nothing more than a 5 out of 10, with some terrible cheesy moments, some nice scenes, but with an awful plot of which the quality only goes downward as the ending approaches.

OK, I admit. This movie is filled with clichés that return in almost any Flemish movie. A funeral, about one of our national sports (soccer or cycling) and the same actors in almost any movie.

But none of that matters. It simply is a great movie. Touching, funny, tear jerking...

The acting is very decent and the tension between the characters is always present.

Some people say that is has boring camera work, but who cares? It's functional. The accent is on the characters, not on the camera movement I'm not a soccer fan, but you don't need to be to like this one.

The title means "Sidelined". And that's exactly what this movie is about.

Buitenspel is a movie about a 12 year old boy who is ambitious to become a Red Devil for the national soccer team of Belgium. After his father, played by Filip Peeters, dies of a heart attack Gilles gets to deal with a lot of emotions in his "new" life: mourning the loss of his father who happened to be his biggest fan and best friend, having to deal with his mother's new partner,... Also Gilles' soccer future gets threatened by a serious foot injury which causes him to having to make a very important decision.

Being a soccer fanatic in school at the same age as the main character I found this picture touching. The acting was great, especially from Joke Devynck and Filip Peeters, and I thought the camera work was pretty good too considering we're talking Belgian film making here.

On the overall I think Jan Verheyen did a pretty good job with this movie. Still Team Spirit en Alles moet weg had that special ingredient this one was missing. In my opinion the story could have been worked out a lot better by using other characters in an understory and I also felt the acting by Ilya Van Malderghem wasn't too satisfying. Sometimes I could just see where a scene was going from the beginning on. I'm not saying I could forecast the ending of the movie because I was expecting to see Gilles turning out to be a "Rode Duivel -15", but there were lots of times where I could have just get a drink without having to pause the film. It was often predictable is what I'm saying... The main character Gilles was played by someone who had no experience at all in movie acting. Maybe Jan Verheyen should have picked a kid that had already been there and wasn't so good at soccer instead. There were a couple of scenes where you could really see that Ilya isn't much of a performer in regard to expressing emotions, f.e. the scene where his mother (Devynck) reminds him his father is dead because of all the psychotic experiences he's having. Also his mother calls him "venteke" which is an Antwerp dialect for "my little guy" for about 563 times in the movie which got a little on my nerves.

Nevertheless there were a lot of aspects I loved about this movie: the story is very likable, the music is fulfilling and I also enjoyed watching Filip Peeters on the screen. Any movie with him would have to be ridiculously catastrophic to be rated under 5 by me. This is a movie worth watching whether you live in Belgium or anywhere else. Emotion is guaranteed!

We (my twin and I) have seen many foreign (being from America) films, and this one is one of the better films we've seen. The acting is wonderful and the story line is easy to understand (for those of us who do not understand the other languages).

The film has plenty of fun and exciting scenes to keep you interested. It also has enough drama and connection to the characters to keep you watching.

It would be a great experience to sit down and watch this great family film.

Even if one did not think the film to be great, it would be well worth watching just to see Ilya Van Malderghem!