johan-wuyckens

Only a handful of Belgian movies haven't given me the feeling that they were produced locally and with a limited budget. This is one of them, not surprisingly because it was done with a larger budget than usual (but still quite small by Hollywood standards). I feel it has everything in place to rival any Hollywood production. The most important asset of the movie however is veteran actor Jan Decleir, a man who was already indirectly nominated a few times for the Oscars via the foreign movies section. Jan Decleir is brilliant and outclasses everyone else on the set (as he often does). The rest of the cast consists of good and not so good actors (some come from terrible Flemish soap series), but somehow everyone seems to rise above him/herself on this occasion and everyone deliver a decent performance. The photography, camera-work, everything's done quite professionally. The difference with many Hollywood action movies is the fact that the plot is quite good. The fact that the main character has Alzheimer's and that he has to use his ever shrinking mental capabilities to finish his quest, is an original twist. People will compare Alzheimer's to Memento, because of the main character's memory loss. But Memento was conceived to challenge viewers, to baffle them, to be perceived as intelligent and artistic. By contrast this movie is more down to Earth, more realistic and in the end simply something completely different. It's nothing more than an original cop-movie, good entertainment and certainly something I'd recommend, even to non Belgian or non-Dutch speaking viewers. Plans are underway for a Hollywood remake of this movie, so it must be other people have recognized its potential too. One word of caution though. Many people say the movie is a bit too long. That's a sentiment I share. At the end the plot loses a bit of its strength. But overall i'd label 'De zaak Alzheimer' a good movie.