Godforsaken Movie Review

Godforsaken hails its Natural Born Killers pedigree right on the front of the video case. Based on a true story of Dutch hooliganism, Godforsaken unfortunately can't keep up with Oliver Stone's heady thrill ride -- and that really isn't saying a lot.

Stan (Egbert Jan Weeber) is an impressionable middle-class kid, with a long-last father and minimal ambition. When old pal Mike (Tygo Gernandt) gets out of jail, Stan gets quickly sucked into Mike's world, joining him on a series of burglaries in search of easy money. Alas, it doesn't start out well -- the first job turns out so badly that things wind up with the shopkeeper dead and the pair emptyhanded. What follows is a disjointed story of Stan and Mike increasingly becoming at odds with the Turkish mafia, Mike's girfriend (Angela Schijf) getting pregnant and having a miscarriage, and infighting among the group.

The movie itself is reasonably well made, a video production with moody Scandinavian sensibility, but the misadventures of Stan and Mike simply aren't interesting enough to hold our attention. The story feels derivative and done to death -- just because the main characters don't speak English doesn't mean the tale is unique. Consider Fun or even Better Luck Tomorrow -- the core of the stories are the same, but the execution is startlingly unique and memorable.

Godforsaken is old hat.

Aka Van God Los.