I must admit that I was a bit surprised by how Offers' ultimately developed as a story. The film is about a policeman with a Lebanese father and a Dutch mother, who gets caught up in a terrorist and secret service conflict. It all starts when his parents are in a suicide-bombing. His Dutch mother is killed and he gets picked up by the secret service as a unique type of individual, Arabic speaking, with strong Dutch ties, and a severe personal motive to get these guys, so what happens next is ...
Okay, my spoiler ends here, these are like the first 10 minutes of this film. The best thing about this film is the excellent performance by Maryam Hassouni. The girl can really act, and her strength is definitely in drama, rather than in comedy. When she cries, gets angry, or plays tough, she's always believable. Also, not unimportant, she has screen presence, attractiveness and charm. In other words, she's HOT!! She was precious as "Dunya" in Dunya & Desi and foxy as "Samara" in Shouf-Shouf, and she has developed well in this film. One hopes that she gets the chance to act in more films, preferably in something less type casted. The performances by Derwig and Gernandt are adequate as well, the latter is looking truly horrible and almost unrecognizable as 'slaveboy Kevin' and he's now Hollands most prominent character actor.
Technically, the film is good, the cutting, the direction, camera-work etc. all is is up to par. The story however is a different ... story. Pun not intended. Although the story is a fairly straight run-of-the-mill spy/thriller story with Muslim terrorists as the usual suspects/bad guys and suspect, murky government agency interference, it fragments towards the end. As a viewer I'm left with some questions, which I won't mention here so as to minimize the spoiler rate.
All in all, we have to be positive about this film, with as gems the excellent actors, especially the stunning and always lovely Maryam Hassouni. She got an Emmy out of it, too.
8/10 The Melancholic Alcoholic.
Update: 10 years later, Hassouni said that the Emmy screwed up her life and acting career, and that she wished she hadn't won it.
Okay, my spoiler ends here, these are like the first 10 minutes of this film. The best thing about this film is the excellent performance by Maryam Hassouni. The girl can really act, and her strength is definitely in drama, rather than in comedy. When she cries, gets angry, or plays tough, she's always believable. Also, not unimportant, she has screen presence, attractiveness and charm. In other words, she's HOT!! She was precious as "Dunya" in Dunya & Desi and foxy as "Samara" in Shouf-Shouf, and she has developed well in this film. One hopes that she gets the chance to act in more films, preferably in something less type casted. The performances by Derwig and Gernandt are adequate as well, the latter is looking truly horrible and almost unrecognizable as 'slaveboy Kevin' and he's now Hollands most prominent character actor.
Technically, the film is good, the cutting, the direction, camera-work etc. all is is up to par. The story however is a different ... story. Pun not intended. Although the story is a fairly straight run-of-the-mill spy/thriller story with Muslim terrorists as the usual suspects/bad guys and suspect, murky government agency interference, it fragments towards the end. As a viewer I'm left with some questions, which I won't mention here so as to minimize the spoiler rate.
All in all, we have to be positive about this film, with as gems the excellent actors, especially the stunning and always lovely Maryam Hassouni. She got an Emmy out of it, too.
8/10 The Melancholic Alcoholic.
Update: 10 years later, Hassouni said that the Emmy screwed up her life and acting career, and that she wished she hadn't won it.
