Rating: C
Dir: Jim Taihuttu
Star: Joes Brauers, Jim Deddes, Jordy Dijkshoorn, Huub Smit
While I’m a fan of industrial, EBM, and other forms of energetic electronic music, the Dutch techno subgenre known as gabber is a little too far. I like it in small doses, but 15-20 minutes is probably about my limit, before I’m all, “That’s enough gabber for me.” Still, I was curious enough to check out this Dutch movie, in which the music scene plays a significant supporting role. It’s the story of two brothers in the nineties. Michael (Brauers) wants to be a concert pianist, but is currently working in a tomato farm. His older brother, Danny (Deddes), is the family black sheep, a drug dealer embedded in the gabber scene who sells his product at its raves.
The story which unfolds is definitely on the familiar end. You should not be surprised to hear, Michael ends up being seduced to the dark side by Danny, much to the disapproval of their parents. This initially means the music, and then the drugs, eventually followed by the crime. For Danny has a nasty habit of falling into debt, getting his pharmaceuticals on credit, then spending the money on Nike Air Max trainers and expensive meals, rather than paying his sponsors. This inevitably puts Michael in jeopardy, along with his imminent audition for a spot at a prestigious music conservatory. Matters come to a head when Danny robs a dealer of his stock, and the victims track the brothers down at a gabber event.
I actually preferred the cultural side of things to the more obvious criminal story. We’ve seen the latter too often before, and there’s nothing much original or, frankly, particularly interesting. It can’t even be bothered to wrap things up properly, giving us an ambivalent ending, leaving the fates of both brothers uncertain. This does come after the film’s most energetic sequence, with them being chased through the arena by the dealer. But I’d have liked five additional minutes to handle the loose ends. It does also presume knowledge of gabber. Poor Chris, who had no such expertise, was peppering me with questions I was, frankly, not a lot better equipped to answer. For instance, “Is it a skinhead thing?”, after Michael shaved his dome, to emulate his sibling (top).
I did like the performances of the two leads, which made them credible as brothers, while each retained their individuality. We start with a lovely rambling monologue from Danny which covers evolution and the human condition. It’s all delivered to someone who just wants the money he’s owed, largely in lieu of payment. This kind of quirkiness is what the movie needs in industrial (musical genre pun not intended) quantities. Instead, I grew increasingly irritated with Danny’s idiotic decisions. Quite why anyone gives him drugs on credit escapes me, since it never ends well. As a glimpse into a subculture from an earlier time, it works better, than as the rather tired urban crime ‘n’ drugs story which gets much of its attention.