Brimstone Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it since this movie had won the Golden Calf of the Best Dutch movie of the year, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, I did end up with some mixed feelings. However, this is such a rare thing to see such an ambitious Dutch production and only therefore the damned thing already got some free extra points from me. Furthermore, this movie is one of the rare exceptions where a mixed-up chronology was not a useless gimmick but actually enhanced this tale. Still, the damned thing was not flawless, far from it, I’m afraid. Indeed, except for Dakota Fanning who gave here a really solid performance, the rest of the cast was, in my opinion, rather wasted. It wasn’t that Guy Pearce was bad though but his character was such a nasty piece of work and, to be honest, it was rather difficult to take him seriously. I mean, what was exactly the deal with this guy after all? Concerning Carice van Houten, it was rather sad to see her playing such a poorly developed and spineless character. To make things worse, the first time that someone finally told her the truth about how miserable her life actually was, she basically killed herself the very next minute. As a rather foreseeable consequence, she therefore left her defenceless daughter alone with her creepy dad and, as a result, it made it rather difficult to root for this woman. However, the most pathetic character was probably the one played by Kit Harington though. Seriously, it felt like watching Jon Snow showing up in a Western with an awful American accent. Finally, I didn’t really get why the main character had to actually cut out her tong. I mean, couldn’t she pretend to be mute instead? Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it was pretty neat to see a Dutch movie with some international ambitions and, only therefore, I think it is definitely worth a look.