The Takeover

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better than I thought

source: The Takeover

20-something chick hacker with a conscious on the run from killers and she doesn't know why. Lots of runnin' around with her skinny legs and an involuntary dude. Kind of a sanitized family version of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and a '90s action movie for the absurd ending. If you see it, let's just say that even before computers, elevators had emergency brakes, so... I've seen Danish movies but the language in this sounded, to me, really weird. Apparently they use a lot of English computer words in Netherlandism. Netherish?

As "The Takeover" (2022 release from the Netherlands; 95 min) opens, we are on a military air base, which is dealing with being hacked and they call in Buddy, the best hacker there ever was in the Netherlands. He figures out quickly where the hacker is located, near the air base. Turns out to be a 16 yo girl. We then go to "10 Years Later" in Rotterdam, where the now 16 yo woman, Mel, works as a security specialist, working against hackers... At this point we are 10 min into the movie. Couple of comments: this is the 2nd feature length from Dutch director Annemarie van de Mond, best known for her frequent TV work. Here she brings what amounts to a straight up hacker action movie, with the lead character, Mel, being framed for a murder she didn't commit. But why is she framed? It's best not to worry about it too much and simply go with the flow. The lead is played by Holly Mae Brood. More importantly, the Buddy character is played by Frank Lammers, possibly the best/most popular Dutch actor around these days (check him out in the fantastic Belgian TV crime drama "Undercover", now 3 seasons under its belt). As for the "action" aspects of "The Takeover": I can't readily recall a movie in which the leads ran as much as in here. Last but not least: the movie is a timely reminder of the ever growing security threat that the Chinese pose in Europe, Africa, and elsewhere, with their never-ending appetite to finance and operate major infrastructure projects, including major ports (like Rotterdam in this film). "The Takeover" recently started streaming on Netflix, and when Netflix "suggested" it to me based on my viewing habits, I readily took Netflix up on it. If you are in the mood for a stylish hacker action movie (in this case from the Netherlands), I'd readily suggest you check this out. And draw your own conclusion.

Combine the plots of the Net and Speed, locate them in modern day Rotterdam and replace originals with worse acting and direction and you'll end up with this movie. This isn't the worst movie and I did manage to watch all the way through with some dozing off during the last inevitable action scene. To excuse my nodding I'd like to say that at this point the plot no longer makes any sense (if it ever did). If you belong to the minority group of viewers you'll also notice that the cycling routes the main character makes are quite illogical. The direction and editing are quite okay and the movie moves forward nicely. The acting is not cringeworthy all the time (at least to a foreign viewer) and there are some actually good scenes here and there.

This Dutch cyber-thriller is centred on Mel Bandison; an ethical hacker who has been employed to check the software on a new driverless bus system. She discovers it has been compromised and her work to correct this upsets some very dangerous people. Soon she has been framed for a murder and is on the run from both the police and criminals. If she is to clear her name and find safety she will have to work with other hackers to find the evidence that proves she was framed. If you've seen just about any other movie featuring hackers you'll spot plenty of genre clichés here. Whether or not you can enjoy the film depends on whether you can suspend your disbelief and ignore the more far-fetched moments for ninety minutes or not. I enjoyed much of the film and thought the tension ramped up nicely towards the end. There isn't much violence and if it weren't for the excessive swearing this would not be unsuitable for younger viewers. The acting is decent enough; Holly Mae Brood is solid in the lead role. Overall I'd say this is far from a must see but it passes the time well enough if you are nostalgic for the hacker films of the '90s. These comments are based on watching the film in Dutch with English subtitles.