Loft (2008)

Simply A Masterpiece

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The movie starts off on a high note in an attempt to take a hold of viewer attention, which it does. The negative side to that is, keeping viewer in that state is a lot harder job. i think that's where this movie went wrong. It's too long! I don't know whether it's to keep integrity of the story, or out of respect to the screenplay,but, the director took a little too much time to establish a character attributes. At the same time took a great detail in not to give out the main crucial point of the plot.The motive of Luc Seynaeve, and eventual involvement of others is a little too thin. More over through out the movie the character Marnix Laureys is shown as a Fool, an imbecile, one who have no regards for social norms. There was only one instance where he was shown, as a loving husband. That's when his wife leaves him!! That side of him is not believable to a normal viewer. It's just thrown into to the story to provide him with a reason for joining into the Luc's plan. Apart from two or three leaky sub plots from the respective character's, and the run time, it's a decent enough movie. Worth While too some extent. Not one you will remember when you think of Best Mystery movies.

The film starts very strange with a raining scene and it's only at the end of the film that it is obvious what happened there. The soundtrack is very good chosen by the genre of the film. The music enforces the story. The flashbacks clarify the different personalities of the five men. In fact, the friends aren't really friends. What surprises me was, when their wives found out that their men cheated them, they all react in a different way. I thought that every woman would give the same reaction, namely furious . It was remarkable that some woman even forgive their men. I really enjoyed the film, it is the best Belgian movie I've ever seen. It was very stirring. The end was really unexpected and surprising. I recommend every grown-up who likes thrillers to watch LOFT.

After the buzz flying 'round my ears for weeks and weeks already, I started to prepare myself for the worst-case-scenario; the nightmare come true: a mediocre by-the-numbers little thriller, about as unsatisfying as one of Stephen King's less inspired pulp scribblings. Luckily giant relief soon replaced my skeptic approach. Hollywood-style? Yes, but not an inferior copy. One of the first scenes bring to mind the opening sequence of 'Inside Man', a man dead on his feet grilled by two unrelenting policemen, he stammers a fogy story, a story that makes less and less sense with each new sentence uttered; the intrigues spreads through the audience, let the games begin!The gorgeous stylized look captured my attention immediately, cinematographically 'Loft' without a doubt means a new high for production values in Belgian cinema. The exploration of the murder-site with the camera's eye (not during the initial discovery of the dead body but a handful of minutes later) astonishes, impossible angles, a sensually swinging camera, death and sex captured in a few seconds of film. The cool, modern design of the loft, and just the fact that we're dealing with a loft here, symbolizes the decadence, of which every character's guilty of, beautifully, and the coldness buried in most of the characters. Predictability can rapidly transform a promising thriller with tons of A-scenes to a B-film beyond redemption (the anti-metamorphosis of the butterfly; from near-godly winged creature back to fat caterpillar). Predictabillity and plot randomness.- what I like to name 'the Perfect Stranger phenomenon (arrange for multiple plausible endings as a result of the vagueness of the plot, and then choose the one that test audiences prefer). 'Loft' is neither! The script is sly en never insults the audience's intelligence. You can see head writer De Pauw spent a lot of time perfecting a diamond in the rough into a three carat one. I personally prefer this more minimalistic (less locations, less movement in the scenes), more plot-driven film over Van Looy's previous. But naturally, this is anything but an insult for 'The Memory of a Killer'. Now let's get to the acting department. There's loads to admire on the silver screen, Filip Peeters gets the most substance to chew on, Bruno Vanden Broucke descends deep into his character, one that heavily contrasts with his usual type of character, only Koen De Bouw pales in comparison to his performance in 'The Memory of a Killer'. Again, this is not an insult, that performance easily ranks among the best of 2003. The part of Filip Willems (played Matthias Schoenaerts) interested me the least, but his presence is unavoidable (for the plot). Now, the small shortage of psychological depth is a minor blemish, certainly because the believability of the plot exists only by the strength of the believability of the characters' motivations. A few extra scenes possibly could be of use to solve this problem, but more than likely would mean a loss of some tension.My heart rate went up, adrenaline pumping, and those icy looks of Bruno Vanden Broucke will not soon fade from memory...

Well, this is my first comment, and no other movie made me write one, although i've seen a lot, believe me.Good story, maybe a little bit over the top, but then again, you go to the movies to be surprised. And i was surprised. Belgian movie making budgets aren't big so what's achieved here is top notch. Bart, well written and Eric well directed. Also , the actors are very well casted, especially Filip Peeters, gave a very good impression. The only part where i was a little part disappointed is the part played by Veerle Baetens. I thought it was the only part where the script failed in the sense that it dropped the pace of the movie a little bit.Overall, very well done. So therefore, my com(ple)ments.CU