Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
Kaydan Christian
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
punishmentpark
I'm not sure whether I liked this film or not, to be honest. The biggest problem for me lies in the characters (not in the acting per se); Dutch adolescents who are put to the viewer in broad strokes while the story is playing deftly with time and viewpoints. The latter made it kind of intriguing (though the finale is a bit lame), but those 'broad strokes' make the actual drama of it all - the murder itself ánd a believable build-up towards it - not very tangible.More than once I had to think of another film based on a real case of teens that turn against a central figure in their group ('Bully' by Larry Clarke), and how that one díd get under my skin - though it's been a while since I've seen it.My rating should be somewhere in the middle, because it wasn't all that bad.
Saad Khan
Schemer – Dusk – CATCH IT ( B ) Allegedly based upon true story of 15 years old girl "Jessica "killed by her friends in small town of Netherlands. It's a story of jealousy, insecurity and how group leader Caesar magnify the small grievances that each of Jessie's friends bear towards her. Caesar transforms these small grievances into a general and pervasive hatred towards Jessica that leads ultimately to her horrible, senseless killing. Schemer cunningly tells the same events from five different points of views. So the audiences understand how each and every one of Jessica's friends starts hating her out of jealousy, insecurity and envy. This method may show one scene again and again from different angles and point of views but in a movie where we know the murder is been committed it's really important to go into minds these people. Matthijs van de Sande Bakhuyzen ("Caesar" and Yes that's his full Name) excels as a group leader, who convinces everyone to kill Jessica when he realizes that she doesn't want him and like Rico. Gaite Jansen is simply brilliant as Jessica, she is innocent, careless and blunt like teenagers. Roos Netjes, Melody Klaver & Robert de Hoog did a nice job as jealous friends of Jessica. Gerson Oratmangoen as Rico seemed misfit to me. Overall, Schemer is a great attempt from Netherlands as in small budget it's been able to capture the essence of jealousy and envy in natural manner.
starcrest-860-227717
There's not much to say about this film other than that the best one can do is to stay as far away from it as one possibly can! This film is extremely, utterly boring. Nothing happens. The dialogue is virtually non-existing, unintelligent, uninteresting and forced. The characters are dull and colorless. They are as interesting as a blank sheet of paper. The film revolves around six young mediocrities who apparently are best friends. None of them are particularly intelligent. One will not find a future notionalist among these kids. They spend their days speaking ill and stab each other in the back,figuratively speaking, and manipulating each other. It is quite incomprehensible that the film has been given such high rating! The only logical explanation must be that, in one way or another, the voters are people involved in the making of the film. Do not watch this piece of trash! AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!
Sterre
This movie was partly shot on my high-school, and, having been an extra in it, I was of course looking forward to seeing it. Knowing what the story was about, and prepared for what would probably be a vehement cinema visit, I went to see it with some friends.If I would have to choose one word to describe this film, it would be Wow. I believe this film is able to take away all the skepticism we see in opinions on Dutch movies. This movie is raw, it is honest, and, like my summary above says, above-board. The killing scene is very shocking, it actually affected me physically; my heart was pounding, I almost couldn't believe what I saw. I've only had that with a couple of movies in my life (including "Black Swan" and I believe "Titanic" as well). Man, this is so good...the acting is wonderful on nearly every point of the movie. Having in mind that we're speaking of actors aged 17-21, I feel a lot of admiration for what they've achieved with this film (especially when I realise I wasn't quite a fan of two of them beforehand). Gaite Jansen again proves herself a big acting talent, and I think we can be very proud of having such a beautiful and gifted girl among our Dutch movie stars.One might think: if you loved it so much, why not rate it 10? Well, I rarely ever rate 10, and I didn't do it here, because of a few reasons: at a few points, the dialogues were beside the mark. The director and actors specifically said they wanted to show how such "normal" teenagers like those in the movie can perform such a cruel deed, but for me, the dialogues felt uncomfortable at some points...it seemed to be too jerky, though I won't deny that might also be part of the mechanism this movie wants to show its viewers...the scapegoat mechanism, the story of a group of friends which such derails that a horrific crime is performed.Don't watch this movie if you can't stand shocking images. Like I wrote, this movie is above-board; the killing of Jessie and the liquidating of her body is an 8-minute scene in the movie. Also, the showing of Jessie's inanimate and corrupting body makes one swallow twice. Do watch it if you like good movies, and if you are prepared and willing to let go of your possible sceptical view on Dutch movies. This one's different than quite a lot of the other ones made before.
