Black Out (2014)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Memorable, crazy movie

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Black-hearted sort of thriller without any really likable characters but a lot of twists, although many of them would be too contrived and coincidental to be believable in real life. Also, the "quirkiness" of many of the characters was over the top, even for a movie of this kind. I'm still rating it highly, because in spite of its flaws, it is short and rapid-fire, so it held my attention completely throughout, and I like movies that are a bit weird. I would have probably rated it a little higher, but, as I alluded to in the beginning of my review, even the lead character is only partially sympathetic, and, right now, the whole gritty anti-hero thing is starting to wear on me. (I love cars. Super clean classic notchback Mustang costars in this movie, which almost tempts me to up its rating on this basis alone.)

Jos Vreeswijk (Raymond Thiry) is a former criminal who wakes up with a gun and a dead man next to him. It's the morning before his wedding to innocent Caroline and his black out leaves him with spotty memory. He is accused of stealing 20 kilos of coke by gay gangster Vlad Omskorski. He has to recover the drugs before it puts Caroline in danger. He reconnects with former running mates; muscle-head Bobbie and coke genius Coca Inez.This is yet another Guy Ritchie wannabe gangster crime movie. It has some of the style, quite a bit of the energy, but it lacks a charismatic lead. He's more of a stiff henchman type. The story is convoluted which is the norm for this type of movie. It just doesn't have the originality. It's all very familiar and not in a good way.

"Black Out" is essentially a Dutch remake of every Guy Ritchie movie ever (except "Swept Away", thank God), take it or leave it. There's nothing new you'll see in this movie, but it's a pretty darn fantastic rendition of crime movie clichés. The female assassins are vintage Tarantino, the dying crime boss is a lot like Christopher Walken in "Things To Do In Denver", the wannabe-villains having a really stupid hobby (in this case dog trimming) is a joke that I must have seen in a billion different crime comedies, but somehow it all just gels perfectly. In a worse framework the oh-so-clever little dialogues would annoy the hell out of me, but everything I'd usually hate just sorta works in this movie, somehow. By the end a lot of people have died, a lot of friends have become enemies and vice versa, a lot of weird one-liners have been uttered, what more can you really want from stuff like this? You've seen this movie before, but you'll have a great time seeing it again.

Not bad, not bad at all, with a bit of humor here and there coming from Willie Wartaal from the hip-hop band De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig. It is stated as the Dutch Tarantino but I wont go that far. Therefor we don't have enough blood and nudity. In fact, there isn't any flesh to see in Black Out. The editing was rather good and it is in fact that part with the voice over that refers to the Tarantino style. It isn't a grindhouse or an exploitation. It's just a flick about mobsters. What also is worth mentioning is the make-up used for the death people and surely for the corpse at the beginning of this flick. You will see some references to Pulp Fiction and of course the two nasty girls also brings back the Kill Bill feeling but for me those two girls didn't work out here in Black Out. They never are the though rough girls going out for a kill. I would like to mention the performance of Raymond Thiry (Jos Vreeswijk), he really was believable. Good story and acting, well filmed and edited (the accident with the car of Jos and a police car is worth mentioning). Never as brutal as a Tarantino flick but still it offers a few good scene's and situations.Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 1,5/5