De Marathon Reviews

To be honest, I found most of the Dutch movies rather disappointing but since this one had some pretty good ratings and was rather well received in the Netherlands, I thought I should check it out. At first, I really had a hard time to get into it and I thought the whole thing was going to be terrible. Indeed, Dutch humor can be sometimes rather dubious and I thought that all these characters, supposedly funny, were just pathetic and really obnoxious. And, yet, slowly, it started to win me over. Indeed, the cast with the always dependable Frank Lammers was actually pretty good and when they stopped focusing on those stupid jokes about the Dutch lower working class, spending more time on their background and their life, it became much more dramatic but it was much more compelling to behold. Towards the end, I was almost ready to give it a positive rating but the damage done during the first half was just too big. On top of that, the question remains if a guy suffering of terminal cancer would be able to run a full marathon like this but, with all movies, you need some suspension of disbelief. To conclude, even though I first thought it would be a total disaster, it turned out to be a decent watch and I think it is worth a look.