Leak (2000)

Directed by: Jean van de Velde | 105 minutes | action, thriller, crime | Actors: Cas Jansen, Ricky Koole, Thomas Acda, Victor Löw, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Lou Landré, Jacob Derwig, Ton Kas, Jacqueline Blom, Loes Wouterson, Ad Knippels, Mohammed Azaay, Kees Boot, Rob Bartels, Ben Ramakers, Jack Romkau, Saskia Temmink, Ian Bok, Horace Cohen, Gerda Cronie, Lukas Dijkema, Angelique de Bruijne, Paul Rigter, Willem Drieling, André Arend van de Noord, Micha Hulshof, Dennis de Getrouwe, Armin Tashakoer, Michiel Nooter, Winston Rodriguez, Adigun Arnaud, Iwan Vogelland, Lisa Portengen, Simon de Waal, Tamer Avkapan, Tijn Docter, Daniël Boissevain, Ling Hu, Jasper van Overbrugge, Willem de Wolf

A Dutch movie called ‘Lek’ can only be about sex and STDs, right? Fortunately, this title refers to the leakage of information, to the police to be precise. The film is based on a book by ex-police officer Jan van Daalen, who put his experiences of the famous, or infamous, office on the Warmoesstraat in Amsterdam on paper. The screenplay has been edited to make it a smooth film, but the oppressive tone is clearly present.

This movie gets a higher rating than the average action movie, because it’s more than simple shooting and fighting. However far the film sometimes gets from what we are used to from Dutch films (albeit so limited in the action genre), it never gets unbelievable. Never a moment of ‘how does he do that?’. Lead actor Cas Jansen (‘Full Moon’) hasn’t had months of fighting training all of which are transferred onto the screen in a matter of minutes. If there’s anything hard to believe in the film, it’s that Cas Jansen gained his acting experience mainly in ‘Good Times, Bad Times’. He carries the film, makes it plausible through his credible reactions and as a viewer you empathize with him almost immediately. This is fundamental for a thriller like ‘Lek’, because without compassion there is no tension. That tension is provided by Victor Löw (‘Costa!’) who plays Cas Jansen’s childhood friend, but has since become a serious criminal (given his Lamborghini). The world he finds himself in is a way of eggs with wafer-thin shells and when you see his love for his newly born daughter, you don’t understand what exactly he is doing there. Only later in the film does it become clear that he is not the friendly neighbor he makes out. Löw almost has to portray a schizophrenic criminal with two extremes (either loving or terribly evil) that tend towards cliché. But cliché is known, so that the viewer at least knows where he or she stands with that strange childhood friend.

Finally, there’s the great role of Thomas Acda who, with his uninterested look, portrays just such a bastard of a cop that you would never want to deal with as a civilian. With his cheap simple jokes (which by the way are still good at parties many years after the release of this film) he provides the comic relief in the film, but by being the asshole of the film at the same time, he never takes the suspense completely. away.

‘Lek’ is based on true stories and that makes the film just that little bit more terrifying. It even seems that one of the detectives, who were present at the first screening, congratulated director Van de Velde on his true-to-life portrayal of Dutch police life. For Dutch standards a top film, for film terms in general an oppressive thriller that could just be. You don’t have to think about it.