This Belgian mystery thriller, follows the trend of the new wave of Scandinavian thriller noir. It tells us the story of a police detective who is haunted by the abduction of his younger brother years earlier when they were kids, while playing together near their house. To make things worse he is regularly taunted by a neighbour who happens to be his main suspect on his brother abduction. His brother was never found, making our main character an obsessive and hard to control individual. The film is impeccably directed, creating a grey picture that feels claustrophobic and terrifying at the same time.
All the actors are excellent and i would like to make special mention to Michael Vergauwen who plays his role with gusto but that's not to take anything away from the rest of the cast since all of them are really great and feel absolutely real. My problem with the film lies with the script. I love European thrillers because as opposed to the American ones they tend to be more about the substance and less about the cheap frills and i found that at some point The treatment decides to throw one too many twists into the plot and as a consequence the movie loses credibility and the whole project suffers for it which is really frustrating in a film this good. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX SPOILERS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX When the swimming teacher tries to talk to the detective about the troll he is totally dismissed despite the fact the police had no real leads and troll seemed to be a recurrent theme in the investigation. when our protagonist meets the old woman following the clues found on the videos left by Plettincks he doesn't even try to search her house and leaves without as much as trying to fully question her. that strikes me as incredibly strange from someone who has been looking for some explanation to his brother disappearance for years and has now a tangible piece of evidence and a real suspect. He later submits the tapes which are his only hope to find out what really happened to his brother. when the police get the results from the tests on the semen found on the young boy's corpse they very happily completely forget about the bite marks which again don't seem to me like the logical actions of a methodical police department. And last but not least why in the name of God doesn't the detective request police back up when he goes to rescue the family at the end of the film. That is the kind of thing that American films do and the reason why they are not realistic in the slightest. All in all a good film that could have been even better.
All the actors are excellent and i would like to make special mention to Michael Vergauwen who plays his role with gusto but that's not to take anything away from the rest of the cast since all of them are really great and feel absolutely real. My problem with the film lies with the script. I love European thrillers because as opposed to the American ones they tend to be more about the substance and less about the cheap frills and i found that at some point The treatment decides to throw one too many twists into the plot and as a consequence the movie loses credibility and the whole project suffers for it which is really frustrating in a film this good. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX SPOILERS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX When the swimming teacher tries to talk to the detective about the troll he is totally dismissed despite the fact the police had no real leads and troll seemed to be a recurrent theme in the investigation. when our protagonist meets the old woman following the clues found on the videos left by Plettincks he doesn't even try to search her house and leaves without as much as trying to fully question her. that strikes me as incredibly strange from someone who has been looking for some explanation to his brother disappearance for years and has now a tangible piece of evidence and a real suspect. He later submits the tapes which are his only hope to find out what really happened to his brother. when the police get the results from the tests on the semen found on the young boy's corpse they very happily completely forget about the bite marks which again don't seem to me like the logical actions of a methodical police department. And last but not least why in the name of God doesn't the detective request police back up when he goes to rescue the family at the end of the film. That is the kind of thing that American films do and the reason why they are not realistic in the slightest. All in all a good film that could have been even better.