This movie is made with mastery and excellent timing. It draws the audience in to the point where you may get completely lost.A near 60 year old man loses everything in his life, his job and his family and is now losing his mind. The film is not told in an especially emotive way, which is why it may be difficult to follow. When this man, John V. takes it upon himself to crusade against a large company, his internal life runs away with him with imagined friendships and conversations, until he goes over the edge.This film is extremely well made, from the art direction to the lighting to the costumes and especially the work of the actors, director and writer. The twist in the story will stay with you for a long time and will make you think about the characters, the director, the writer and about yourself.

Two of THE great actors of Dutch/Belgium cinema are opposite each other in this drama/thriller based on actual events: Jeroen Krabbe and Jan Decleir.This movie (based upon actual events) tells the story of a man who enters a building with the intention of keeping one of the Philips directors hostage, only to find he is in the wrong building, since Philips moved to the building next door. The movie is mainly a character study and isn't so much about the hostage taking itself as about the events leading to the man's action.SPOILERS******SPOILERS******SPOILERS*******SPOILERS**** The events leading to the main character's action are not so much what actually lead to it, but the movie's point of view is from the main character himself. We see things through his eyes/memories and we are dealing here with a man who gradually but surely starts to lose every sense of reality. All the meetings with the Philips director are more or less figures of his imagination, something I understand from other reviews, not everybody is grasping, at least not immediately.END OF SPOILERS******END OF SPOILERS*******END OF SPOILERS***** I feel this is a very good movie indeed carried by two great actors who both make the most of their roles. Both actors deserve a chance in international big movies. Jeroen Krabbe has played in several of them in the end of the 80's, beginning of the 90's (No Mercy, License to Kill, the Fugitive) and plays a role now in the new Deuce Bigalow movie with Rob Schneider, but please please let someone give this man an interesting character role in a quality drama and the same goes for Jan Decleir who has been offered some international roles, but turned them down, cause from an actor's point of view they were not the most interesting, witch is a daring thing to do, but maybe a good thing to. These are two fine actors who can really bring a movie to a higher level as they prove with this movie!

I was very skeptic when this movie came out. The movie is based on a true story of a man who takes a building and several employees hostage because he is convinced of it that there are hidden encoded messages in Philips widescreen televisions and he demands that Phillips admits this to the general public, in a TV press conference. Only problem is...he has taken the wrong building hostage. Sounds like more than enough material to make a comedy about, so needless to say that I was very skeptic and even a bit angry when I found out that they wanted to make a serious heavy drama about this man and what drove him to his actions. But the movie ended up being far better than I could have ever had expected it to be.The movie perfectly shows the growing paranoia of the main character and how he slowly looses all sense of reality. The already unstable character (his wife has left him after more than 30 years and he has trouble at his work as a bus driver) becomes more understandable, he's a man who has got nothing more to loose and wants justice.The two main actors are really what drives this movie. Jan Decleir is a truly fantastic actor. This guy has had several big Hollywood offers already (Kubrick wanted him in "Eyes Wide Shut" and he was offered a part in "The World is not Enough" and he has played in several Academy Award winning Dutch movies.). But Jeroen Krabbé really impressed me the most. I already knew what a great actor he was of course but I had never seen him playing a better role as he did in this movie.It's too bad that the story is told in a typical 'Dutch way'. The story keeps jumping from present time to what happened prior to this man's desperate action. It feels kind of pointless that the story is told in this way and it became a bit irritating after a while.Still the movie is not worth the low rating it receives here currently. (Only a 5.3? What's up with that?) and obviously so far all the other movie reviewers here agree with that. The movie is not just good, it's great, thanks to the good directing from big talent Pieter Kuijpers and the acting of the two main actors, Jan Decleir and Jeroen Krabbé. The script could had used some more work here and there though.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

The movie is simply excellent. The plot is intriguing and it really makes you wonder of what is true. Is it really all the fantasy of John Voerman, or is Philips director kleisterlee really lying. Philips has always been a company with a lot of secrets and a certain "mist" around its tech knowledge.. and in this story it all comes together.... the movie shows a drama of a lonely bus driver who commits a desperate deed and works with flashbacks to how it all came that far. The viewer always remains in doubt of what is true and what isn't....The cinematics, the music, the script, the brilliant acting(!!) it all comes together in a marvelous movie with shocking end (even if you know the story from the newspapers) In one word brilliant movie!!!