The Second Face (2017)

Directed by: Jan Verheyen | 126 minutes | action, crime | Actors: Koen De Bouw, Werner De Smedt, Greg Timmermans, Sofie Hoflack, Marcel Hensema, Hendrik Aerts, Ikram Aoulad, Jurgen Delnaet, Chris van den Durpel, Hilde Heijnen, Travis Oliver, Jasmine Jaspers, Tom Magnus, Greet Verstraete, Kadèr Gürbüz , Peter Thyssen, Michiel De Meyer, Marijke Pinoy, Kim Hertogs, Christel Domen, Julie Van den Steen, Karel Vingerhoets, Eric Godon, Erik Goris, Sven De Ridder, Daan Hugaert, Mark Arnold

The Netherlands has De Cock and his assistant Vledder, Flanders has Vincke and Verstuyft. The detective duo plays the leading role in a large number of crime novels written by Jef Geeraerts (1930-2015). The 1986 book ‘The Alzheimer Case’ – with which Geeraerts won the Gouden Strop – was filmed with great success in 2003 by Erik van Looy, with Koen de Bouw in the role of the experienced and bold detective Eric Vincke and Werner de Smedt as Freddy Verstuyft, his unruly assistant. Six years later, the second part in the trilogy, ‘Dossier K.’ (2009). Jan Verheyen had taken over the direction from Erik van Looy, who had other obligations. Van Looy did co-write the script. ‘File K.’ had less depth than ‘The Alzheimer Case’, but was quite spectacular and exciting. The third and last book in the series about Vincke and Verstuyft that was made into a film is ‘Het Tweede gelaat’ (2017), after Geeraerts’ book ‘Double Face’ from 1990. Verheyen again took the director’s chair, and Carl Joos had just as in the first two parts, involved in the screenplay. In this film, Vincke and Verstuyft get into a fight with a serial killer who chops off his victims’ heads. In addition, the friendship and collegiality between the two detectives comes under considerable pressure.

The lifeless and decapitated body of a young woman is found on the Flemish heath. Further investigation reveals that a total of six headless women’s bodies are buried in the area. Vincke (Koen de Bouw) and Verstuyft (Werner de Smedt) investigate the case and receive a tip that a body has also been reported in the town of Doel. They do not find a corpse there, but a confused young woman with only a bright yellow safety vest and hair dyed bright red. Where Vincke suspects that this Rina (Sofie Hoflack), a psychiatrist by profession, partied too exuberantly, Verstuyft – visibly impressed by the beautiful young woman – thinks that she is an alleged victim of the serial killer who barely managed to escape. . Vincke rounds up his old friend Anton Mulder (Marcel Hensema), a Dutchman who works as a profiler for Europol, and focuses on a similar case a few years earlier in Cologne. He and his team compile a list of men who have moved from Cologne to Belgium in the intervening years. Verstuyft opposes this and follows his own path, a path that often brings him close to Rina. Then he commits the biggest ‘no go’ for a police officer: he goes to bed with the main witness in the case. When Vincke finds out, he can no longer keep his buddy’s hand over his head. The killer has meanwhile set his sights on a new victim…

A femme fatale who drives a wedge between two detective friends; it’s a theme that appears more often in crime movies. But actually you never doubt that things will be okay between the two. This is due to the lack of tension that ‘The second face’ struggles with. Only at the very end does Verheyen come up with not one, but even two finals that leave you on the edge of your seat, partly due to a turnaround in the style, which suddenly becomes much more dynamic and unpolished. But the more than a hundred minutes that precede it are not too exciting. Well, there are two sex scenes that shake things up a bit and the viewer is presented with the necessary ‘red herrings’ that regularly shift the focus to another suspect. But the seasoned thriller viewer immediately sees through this and quickly knows which way the story will eventually go. What this film has lost in tension compared to ‘The Alzheimer Case’ and ‘Dossier K.’, it has gained in humor – or at least attempts at it. Hensema’s character in particular has to suffer; Verstuyft clearly does not like the Dutch. Incidentally, Hensema only participates a little for bacon and beans, because his character turns out to be a loose bag who has little to add to the whole. Just as De Bouw seems to have had to take a step back, in favor of De Smedt and newcomer Hoflack, who are given ample opportunity here with their forbidden romance.

The only problem is that Verstuyft is a less sympathetic figure than Vincke, De Smedt is a less good actor than De Bouw and that the inexperienced Hoflack is often shooting. Moreover, the imperfections in the scenario are therefore extra noticeable. Because which psychiatrist is so amicable with a patient? And how unsatisfactory is it that in the end we don’t get a convincing motive? Because why the perpetrator committed the murders and beheaded the women, remains a mystery even after 127 minutes. ‘The second face’ is by far the weakest in the series of book adaptations based on the detectives Vincke and Verstuyft; the balance is lost in both style and dynamics and the scenario rattles on all sides. Maybe it’s a good thing that the trilogy is now over.