Plan C (2012)

Directed by: Max Porcelijn | 95 minutes | thriller, crime | Actors: Ruben van der Meer, Ton Kas, René van ‘t Hof, Kees Hulst, Rifka Lodeizen, Victor Löw, Steef Cuijpers, Leny Breederveld, Horace Cohen

Max Porcelijn, it’s a name like from a movie, or from a well-thumbed whodunnit. Not for nothing, as appears from the feature film debut of this young writer-director. ‘Plan C’ not only survives the comparison with well-known criminal contemporaries from film history (‘Fargo’, ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’), but adds an exciting and tragicomic chapter to it in the Netherlands. The simple story of ‘Plan C’ – a detective with gambling debts wanders along the wrong path – unfolds in the hands of cast and crew into a layered, well-spoken narrative that sticks to the end.

Ronald Plasmeyer (Ruben van der Meer) is certainly not the detective you need when you are the victim of a crime. The manager of an illegal casino is happy to see him come by: the loser gets a pounding heart when he sees one ace between his cards. It’s no surprise that Plasmeyer ends up ‘in a difficult position’ after a shady night of chips. He owes the Chinese loan shark to Hao ten thousand euros, and Hao is not the man to wait long for that. Plasmeyer is given a week to prevent ‘worse’. For himself, for his son Simon, and for his ex-wife. He sees no other way out than to come up with a bright plan: a robbery of an illegal poker tournament, in which he will participate himself. Because gentle surgeons make stinking wounds, he enlists the help of mousey tout Gerrit (René van ‘t Hof, who elevates the verbal hesitation here to art). In turn Gerrit brings his brother-in-law Bram (Ton Kas) with him. If Gerrit is the man who has the cheap accident like bags under his eyes, then Bram is the one whose thin lips and smoldering look are not trusted even by Plasmeyer. It is a pleasure to hear them confer, at a set table in a vague restaurant. That nothing can come out of their cooperation but more misery is a thought that only occurs to them.

Little evokes emotion more easily than small people with big plans, certainly not when they are portrayed as in ‘Plan C’. But what makes this film so pleasantly tragicomic is that everyone who walks around in it takes themselves so seriously. The viewer, who may laugh at them, may even feel a little sorry for them, but they themselves are too immersed in their complex existence to be able to take some healthy distance from it. Plasmeyer leads the way, balding, mustachioed, and shoulderless. Had he been a little smarter, he would certainly have become depressed. Fortunately, he himself had a ‘better’ plan.