Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015)

Based on a true story the film had the ingredients to be a brilliant film with big success, just look at the line up of cast in this film!! You would not of needed anthony hopkins if it was done right but there is that word "if" the screenplay and the script is very disappointing the film is good (well passable) but its just that it could and should of been done better the camera shots are like they were done by a toddler and when your looking forward to seeing this film your actually glad its only on for 92 minutes. I am being kind by giving the film a 5/10 but overall its a disappointment save your money and buy a case of Heineken and watch something else

Fmovies: How a crime drama with such good cast can be so dull is borderline a crime. The actors are good, but the characters they play have the personality of barren unsympathetic schmucks. The screenplay and conversation are dry, primarily dabbling in curses and complaints for nearly the entire movie. While there are clearly a couple of good moments by the actors, they are too few to sustain interest for the rest of boring banters.

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken is exactly what it advertises, the story of five men who are down on their luck and decide to snatch a billionaire in hope for monetary gain. It's amazing that none of these five character is even close to being relatable. The movie tries to depicts individuals who are pushed to do illegal things, yet they are all manipulative, aggressive and severely lacking empathy.

At latter half they are even interchangeable since everyone has a knack for whining, in exception of Sam Worthington's character who surprises audience with poor and crazy decisions. Probably the best decision the movie did was to put Anthony Hopkins as Heineken in a box and let him do a few monologues. Still, there is no tangible connection between Heineken and the kidnappers, there's not even connection between the kidnappers. When the movie tries to pull friendship theme, it only makes things more awkward.

For action crime, one would expect an intelligent plot, perhaps major twists and thought out plans. There's a barely any level of sophistication here as five of them partially wing it and hope for the best. In fact, most of the times they are just fooling around, laughing annoyingly and verbally abusing each other.

The film offers the shallow sense of helplessness and uneasiness as audience watch five aversive men threatening an old man for money and bicker with each other.

Fact more strange than fiction Peter R. de Vries both participated in and wrote the book about this true story from 1983 and collaborated on the screenplay with William Brookfield for this non-stop rousing caper film with a very bright young cast of actors directed by Daniel Alfredson. The film is well made, well photographed, well scored with an excellent musical selection and arrangement, and very well acted by a fine cast of young actors.

In 1983, a group of childhood friends - Cor van Hout (Jim Sturgess), Willem Holleeder (Sam Worthington_ Jan 'Cat' Boellard (Ryan Kwanten), Frans 'sSpikes' Meijer (Mark van Weuwen), Martin 'Brakes' Erkmpps (Thomas Cocquerel) - pulled off the crime of the century: kidnapping one of the richest men in the world, the heir of the Heineken beer empire (Anthony Hopkins). The shocking capture --by gunpoint in broad daylight on the streets of Amsterdam--resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for a kidnapped individual. It was truly the perfect crimeÂ…until they got away with it. This is the inside story of the planning, execution, rousing aftermath and ultimate downfall of the kidnappers which resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for an individual. For a fast moving credible caper, this is a fine film, never letting down for a moment.

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken fmovies. This movie promised a heist, a historical kidnapping plot leading to the largest ransom paid in modern history AND Anthony Hopkins as the titular Mr. Heineken. Sadly, this movie failed to deliver. The motivations were at times unclear (There was mention of a major recession but we were never shown its far-reaching effects and thus could not empathize with out protagonists) and at times forced (all of a sudden there is a girlfriend involved who is now pregnant and needs to be financially supported and one protagonist's father appeared momentarily only to reveal he was fired by Mr. Heineken himself and we never hear from him again). The kidnappers were virtually indistinguishable yet the focus was on them instead of the police investigation or on Mr. Heineken's (and his driver's) plight in solitary. To top it off, the end text credits detailing the outcomes of the various characters (which can be found on wikipedia) were more interesting than most of the movie. I have to recommend passing on this and reading a brief synopsis of the real life case instead.

Anthony Hopkins lends his name and histrionic talents to uplift an otherwise pedestrian real- life crime thriller KIDNAPPING MR. HEINEKEN. Without his presence this would be just another direct-to-video feature of European origin.

Don't get me wrong -I've been a huge fan of European-made caper and action movies since childhood, growing up watching innumerable dubbed -into-English low-budget imports on TV via syndication packages back in the '60s. At the high end, Jules Dassin's RIFIFI remains the unbeatable greatest caper movie of all time, and the various big-budget, in-joke titles like the original and update series of OCEAN'S ELEVEN are watchable. But give ma a silly Brad Harris-Tony Kendall intl. co-production and I'm in heaven.

With a weak script by William Brookfield, based on Peter de Vries' reportage and book about the beer company magnate's 1982 kidnapping, this film turns out to be lacking in entertainment value. The criminals, a rag-tag group of businessmen/slackers who turn to crime when their unreasonable application for a business loan is turned down, are simply an uninteresting bunch and their reluctance to resort to violence (lethal or otherwise) is morally laudable but leads to dullness - the picture has no sex and no real violence, hardly suitable for today's audiences. And it lacks humor, not even of the Disney or OVER-THE-HILL GANG puerile variety.

Only interesting structural note (which ultimately backfires) is the script's purist approach whereby every scene is presented from the criminals' point-of-view. In a kidnapping story the viewer is used to time-honored clichés regarding the police (or FBI or Interpol) and the victim's family and associates -what they are doing to get Heineken back alive and catch the baddies. But here we have none of this, only scenes about the kidnappers and their apprehension at getting caught. This novel structure (cops only appear sans dialog to pursue or make arrests) violates Hitchcock's famous dictum about suspense -all we get are surprises because we (like the kidnappers) are narratively left in the dark. We never see the net closing in on them, apart from a few red herrings based solely on the criminals' own paranoia.

Jim Sturgess as head kidnapper Cor, a family man with pregnant wife who inexplicably throws all that away to become a fugitive merely longing to return home from his Paris hideout, is empathetic and acts well enough, but can hardly carry a film. The role called for an A-list name, perhaps his supporting co-star Sam Worthington, miscast as Cor's brother-in-law, written as a hothead but unconvincingly played by Sam who the viewer is used to seeing (after AVATAR) as a leading man.

Hopkins in as brief a screen time as won Judi Dench an Oscar for Shakespeare IN LOVE, easily dominates the film with his brief but pungent & idiosyncratic monologues -he gets to speak unanswered because the hooded kidnappers don't want to respond to him verbally at all. You can see the wheels turning in Hopkins' head as he cleverly tries to get into the heads of his adversaries and casting him was a bold stroke (probably the reason Worthington signed on to an unpromising project at this stage in his career).

I did not like the camera-work and editing of the movie, especially during action & chase scenes such as a boat vs. cars sequence on Amsterdam's canals after the boys had robbed a bank delivery van to raise capital for their big Heineken snatch score. And

'Kidnapping Freddy Heineken' is a story about a gang of Dutch crooks who decide that holding one of Holland's wealthiest businessmen for ransom will be a fast-track to easy money. It's hardly an inspiring premise, but the thing that makes it – slightly – better than the rest, is that it's based on a true story.

If you check out the literature online about it, you'll see that – surprise, surprise – liberties have been taken with the plot, but, from what I can gather, it is reasonably faithful – if you excuse the obvious parts which have been 'Hollywooded up' to speed the story up. The second plus point is Anthony Hopkins, who plays the titular millionaire. Always a good performance from 'Sir Tony.' Unfortunately, he's not in it as much as most of us would probably like. The main story focuses on the criminals, half of which are pretty bland, although one is played by Sam Worthington and another does have a family who features prominently, fleshing out his character a bit more. You may have to wait about forty-five minutes before we meet Hopkins though.

The film does its best to get us to empathise with the criminals and, for the most part, it sort of succeeds. We can see that they're the down-on-their-luck sorts who are only really after the money, but, at the end of the day, they are criminals, so – deep down – we're pretty much waiting for them to get their comeuppance.

If you're interested in the history of the case, it's probably best to read one of the books. Granted, I haven't, but I'm happy to settle for the big screen adaptation. Yeah, it passes the time – it's nothing special and I probably won't remember it in a year or so, but it kept me just about entertained enough while I was watching it.