Director: Daniel Alfredson
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Sam Worthington, Jim Sturgess, Ryan Kwanten
Certificate: 15
Running time: 95 minutes
Synopsis: The inside story of the planning, execution, rousing aftermath and ultimate downfall of the kidnappers of beer tycoon Alfred “Freddy” Heineken, which resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for an individual.
We love movies here at THN, we really do. Every movie that gets made is a little film miracle, what with all the obstacles they face along the way. Sometimes though, and thankfully it’s not too often, we see a film that makes us wish one of those obstacles had tried a tad harder to hinder the output – KIDNAPPING FREDDY HEINEKEN is the latest to fall into this sad, unforgiving box.
Purporting to be an action crime drama, the film is based on the true story of a dutch gang of criminals who decide to kidnap the CEO of the Heineken brewing company, played by Sir Anthony Hopkins, in order to cash in on a ransom of €35 million. There’s a bit of family history there as the father of one of the gang members was fired by Heineken but largely they just think they’ll make a ton of money. Just to be clear, let’s recap – it’s a Dutch gang at the centre of this story. Sam Worthington, Jim Sturgess and Ryan Kwanten are the three main petty thieves behind this plan, a noticeable amalgamation of nationalities and accents there. You might see where we’re going with this.
Now, we’re not suggesting that when a film is based on a true story every detail has to be played out the exact same way, we know creatively that isn’t always possible and would often make a much poorer film. These three actors are seemingly fine choices for the roles, each could play a criminal with conviction thanks to looking slightly shady quite easily. Our problem however, is in the films’ believability.
When the ransom isn’t immediately paid the gang have to keep their prisoner longer than anticipated whilst the police mount a huge search for them. Imagine you’re the Dutch police. One of the richest men in the country has been kidnapped, you have an disgruntled former employee whose child hangs around with a shady bunch of friends who are also the most noticeable people in the country due to their foreign accents and you don’t think to do just a little bit of investigating? These aren’t exactly mastermind criminals – they leave the ransom note in a photocopier at one point. The plot continuously descends into such a ridiculous state of affairs you’ll genuinely think you’re watching a genre spoof.
There’s plenty of other faults within this movie; the script is stale, the pace is criminally sedate for an action movie and the performances, especially that of Freddy Heineken himself, are hammed up and barely watchable. It’s only 95 minutes long but you’ll feel every single one of those minutes tick by with excruciating slowness.
We’ll leave it there for now, although we did want to mention that the good folk at Empire are using the film to launch the first UK ‘SuperTicket’ which means that when you buy a ticket to the film you also receive an instant digital pre-order which can be redeemed on Wuaki.tv. What do you mean our review has put you off buying a ticket?
[usr=1] KIDNAPPING FREDDY HEINEKEN is released in cinemas on Friday 3rd April.
