StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

jhmoore This movie was quite well constructed, if not a tad confusing. Then again, I tend to enjoy movies that aren't subscriptive to the standard Hollywood format that spoonfeeds you the plot like easy-to-digest babyfood.It beings by telling a story that is fairly simple to understand, about a disgruntled bus driver who has a bone to pick with Philips for their push to have consumers purchase widescreen television sets when presumably their old sets behave just as well for most of the available content in 2000.Then a sort of undertone sets in, very subtly, as if the movie is simply telling a matter-of-fact story that the audience is supposed to just understand. There is no mention nor even hints to help the audience put the pieces together, it is as if they are just supposed to "get it" As it continues towards the end, we/the audience is questioning exactly what is real and what is not.. Does the protagonist know the Head of Sound and Vision at Philips? Does he come over to his house with the host of The Quiz? Does he give him a handgun? None of this is explained, but as the plot comes to a close we suddenly might see it as merely the paranoid delusions of an elderly man on the edge of dementia, rather than an actual plot to infect the audience through widescreen television..? One main clue towards this argument is that apart from his initial audience with Wesselinck in his office, all the rest seem to be disjointed, as if the conversations are taking place inside his head.. The visit to the secret research facility for Pandora, even the shooting range with Astrid, which also seems to be housed in the same facility as Pandora..Either way, this is an excellent film, and I'm also surprised it has such low ratings. I'm giving this an 8, when I wish i could give it an 8.5. Some of the overall plot is a bit poorly presented, and it leaves the audience very confused at the end, and while this may have been the director/writers purpose, the level of disjointedness is quite unsettling.

[email protected] Two of THE great actors of Dutch/Belgium cinema are opposite each other in this drama/thriller based on actual events: Jeroen Krabbe and Jan Decleir.This movie (based upon actual events) tells the story of a man who enters a building with the intention of keeping one of the Philips directors hostage, only to find he is in the wrong building, since Philips moved to the building next door. The movie is mainly a character study and isn't so much about the hostage taking itself as about the events leading to the man's action.SPOILERS******SPOILERS******SPOILERS*******SPOILERS**** The events leading to the main character's action are not so much what actually lead to it, but the movie's point of view is from the main character himself. We see things through his eyes/memories and we are dealing here with a man who gradually but surely starts to lose every sense of reality. All the meetings with the Philips director are more or less figures of his imagination, something I understand from other reviews, not everybody is grasping, at least not immediately.END OF SPOILERS******END OF SPOILERS*******END OF SPOILERS***** I feel this is a very good movie indeed carried by two great actors who both make the most of their roles. Both actors deserve a chance in international big movies. Jeroen Krabbe has played in several of them in the end of the 80's, beginning of the 90's (No Mercy, License to Kill, the Fugitive) and plays a role now in the new Deuce Bigalow movie with Rob Schneider, but please please let someone give this man an interesting character role in a quality drama and the same goes for Jan Decleir who has been offered some international roles, but turned them down, cause from an actor's point of view they were not the most interesting, witch is a daring thing to do, but maybe a good thing to. These are two fine actors who can really bring a movie to a higher level as they prove with this movie!

W de Bruin I have seen this movie, because I was curious about the way the fact of the hostage was being filmed and about Jan Decleir and Jeroen Krabbé working together. The film tells the story behind the hostage taker John V. He is lonely man living in his own world. He is product of our society. Wesselinck is a self made top manager and can afford everything. He gets to know John by coincidence ( or not ). John is writing letters to Philips because he suspects the multimedia company of putting encoded messages in 'widescreen'tv-sets. John is no longer seeing his wife and children and is a bus driver. In his spare time he writes letters to Philips and watches recorded tapes of a popular knowledge quiz. When he meets Wesselinck the top man, they become friends because they are alike. Wesselinck lets John in on a top secret project which has to do with manipulation. The film takes the audience behind the screens and only reveals at the end. All the time you think it's like this and in the end there is a complete turnaround! Superb! I happened to have an interview with Jan Decleir in Rotterdam last February and he told me the movie had been made in three weeks. The cast worked very hard and the result is a great movie! Go and see for yourself!

M-46 I had high expectations of this movie, everybody in The Netherlands was shocked when they heard the news that a man took a building and the people in it hostage. Sometimes the movie is quite confusing you do not always know what is real, at the end it becomes clear. Probably the reason why the rating is so low. But it tells the story about the man who takes people hostage and how he comes to his act and justifies it. I think they did a great job in trying to tell the story behind this man. You even start feeling for this guy. I gave it a 7 out of 10. Go see it, it is worth it. Jeroen Krabbé was good as ever and I also liked Jan Decleir. Both are very good and experienced actors. Definitely no waste of time.