Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

gradyharp 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 crime…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.

TxMike The events of 30 November 1983 when Freddy Heineken was kidnapped in Amsterdam are well-documented. It resulted in the highest paid ransom up to that point in history. The movie is a bit disconcerting because it features an all-star cast of British actors, and a former Brit as Mr Heineken, but overall did not detract too much from the story when you finally realize they are all Dutch.The group of five men are depicted as needing money, they have what seems like a legitimate business but need a bank loan. Unable to secure that they resort to crime. The plan is to kidnap Freddy Heineken, hold him for ransom, and expel all their financial woes.Anthony Hopkins, former Brit and now American citizen, is very effective as Freddy Heineken. As history witnesses the men were able to get the money, split it up, and get away. But only for a short time. Even though two of them managed to get to France, and one to Paraguay, they all ended serving prison terms. Not all of the money was recovered.There is nothing very special about this movie, mainly interesting because of its historical account. The crooks are depicted as mostly bumbling, they had no real strategy for the aftermath of the kidnapping and ransom delivery.

bowmanblue '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.

bradfuller I gave up on this movie about 10 minutes in, solely because of the frenetic cuts (eg 1 second of footage between cuts) added to extremely shaky hand-held camera and "everyone talking / yelling at once" action...I am willing to accept that this is an "artistic" choice by the director/editor..... but it drove me to screaming "HOLD THE F#$%^ CAMERA STILL" at the screen after 10 minutes..if this technique doesn't bug you, you may well enjoy the movie.. I'll never know ... :^)I didn't get to see sir anthony at all ..