User reviews

Tragedy, Betrayal and Intrigue... this film has a healthy dose of all of these. Not knowing of Klaas Bruinsma I considered this movie to be very well done. After reading up on him I could see how some, with the wrong expectations, could be disappointed after seeing this. It isn't really as accurate to the life of Klaas Bruinsma as some wanted it to be. Personally I think the right amount of artistic liberty was taken to give Klaas some redeeming qualities and to make the movie interesting. If you sit down expecting a movie "inspired by" or "loosely based on" Klaas Bruinsma then you should walk away gratified. The direction was excellent, the acting was excellent and the story was for the most part good. If I had to find something to criticize this movie for it would probably be that they jumped from him being a mid level dealer to a big time boss without much transition in between. This is very minor though. Anyone who does a little bit of reading on the real guy and rethinks the movie can fill in the blanks with a little imagination.

While I wouldn't give this a masterpiece/perfect/excellent rating of 9/10 or higher (which I would give to movies like The Godfather or The Usual Suspects) I think this film was above par. Solid 7 or 7.5/10. :) I hope this Director continues making films.

Script has some flaws: dialogue is poor throughout and development is sketchy and confused. Acting is fairly solid. Frans Lammers is pretty good as Adri and Chantal Janzen delivers.

In some respects, the Bruinsma legacy seems to have intimidated rather than inspired this movie. Peter Paul Muller seems wary to actually provide substance to his character and on occasion comes across as a bit of a lifeless cast, more concerned with not getting it wrong than with getting it right.

Towards the end De Dominee picks up speed and force and works towards a predictable but suitably tragic conclusion. Sharper direction and editing might have helped bring more intensity to the beginning and the middle as well. As it is, the movie sags too often.

For a dutch production, this one is pretty good. Although based on Klaas Bruinsma, the movie doesn't use all parts of the real life of Bruinsma at points, which is easily acceptable to actually spice up the movie. Only thing that had me curling my toes was the awful acting at times. Of the three main characters I'd say Frank Lammers puts on a marvelous performance, in great contrast with Chantal Janzen who I found hard to believe at times. The corny lines might not have been her fault, but those lines could have definitely been brought more realistically to actually represent an emotion like anger.. Peter Paul Muller did an OK job I guess, but it didn't really have me as excited as Frank Lammers who to me really stands out of the crowd with this performance.. Enough about acting then, the story: it's really a story with a great sense of irony in it. The man who wanted to be the biggest without losing himself in the criminal world of liquidation, but in the end he throws all morals overboard just to stay on top.. good enough for me! 7 out of 10 for a decent story, but corny dialogues at times and besides Frank Lammers' excellent performance, it really shows what a poor movie country Holland really is IMHO.

The movie was okay, the kind you rent on DVD on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Bur surely not worth the 9 euro's i had to pay to see it at the cinema! Acting was average at best and pretty bad at times. It's nice to see the locations in Amsterdam. Art direction was good, as was the music. The story was a bit boring, nothing much happened really. You just follow the main character, Klaas (Bruinsma), from the start of his criminal career to his demise and violent death years later. The plot you can see coming like light years ahead, no surprises there. Although i predicted what was to happen i still don't yhink it makes any sense. I'm curious what others think about this movie... 6/10

It's a mediocre film, but I think the main problem is Peter Paul Muller is not all that convincing as a bad guy of this magnitude. I surely wasn't impressed with his performance. Also, some of the scenery makes you think the events took place in the eighties, but other scenes are like they happened in our time... there are plenty of thing that don't look like 15-20 years ago.

And how come Tygo Gernandt is ALSO in this movie? He is making way too much movies, someone should say to him that it's a Tygo overkill.

It was more hype than quality that made this movie, but still it's nice to see a new genre being tried in Dutch Cinema, and overall the acting was good.

This movie is excellent for Dutch understandings, it's even DAMN GOOD as long as you don't compare it with the real story about Klaas Bruinsma.

It's a movie about Friendship, Loyalty and Treason within the crime-circuit.

The cast of this movie really gave life to the characters, witch made this movie nice to watch if you like the genre.

For all you people who like soundtracks; Intwine - Cruel Man is the maintrack for this movie. Check it Out!

I can recommend this movie if you loved "Van God Los", you'll surely love this, if not I'm sorry.

Positives: interesting take on the rise and fall of Dutch crime lord Klaas Bruinsma, with strong performances by Frank Lammers and Marcel Musters in supporting roles. High production values, nice art direction, obviously a labor of love of sorts.

Negatives: ham-fisted storytelling, clunky dialog, utter miscasting of Muller and Janzen as the leads.

Overall: I could care less that the writers invoked their artistic license to re-imagine Bruinsma's life, but they should have gone ahead and cast a lead capable of projecting larger-than-life ambition. The opening and climax are OK, but the 110-minute running time feels like 220. Muller is not a bad actor - it's just that he's completely devoid of a dark side.

The movie is pretty good, as long as you haven't read the book or don't know the real life of Klaas Bruinsma. There are many changes in the film. Like people are being killed that weren't in the real life. The book only speaks of 9 liquidations and I don't know how many there were in the movie, but more then 9.

Overall the movie is pretty good. The acting is believable and Chantal Jansen surprised me. Though she isn't a tough bitch as his wife in the book...

Well if you haven't read the book I recommend the movie. If you've read it... don't go to see it as you will be disappointed...

"De Dominee" is based on the life of a real dutch gangster,Klaas Bruinsma! In the movie he is called Klaas Donkers! I have my doubts that events presented in the movie have something to do with what really happened! But that doesn't really matter! Because it failed to grab my attention! This movie bored the crap out of me! It lacks substance and style! The substance part could have been forgiven if the acting was any good and if the director tried to do something original! Without the substance you at least have to bring some style or decent action! Don't we need to be entertained? It would have helped if the director had seen more gangster movies! It is obvious that he didn't! Otherwise he wouldn't have made this the way he did! This movie got a lot of publicity because of a little scandal surrounding Klaas Bruinsma and a member of the Dutch Royal family! This scandal has nothing to do with the movie what so ever! Without it "De Dominee" never would have been successful! I am sure of it!

After some quite OK Dutch action flicks, like Lek and Van God Los, Gerrard Verhage wants to make a movie about the life of a Dutch mobster. Well, mobster is a big word for Klaas Bruinsma. He isn't a real international big guy like George Jung (Blow) or Pablo Escobar. He is just an Amsterdam lowlife who made some money by selling soft-drugs. Things are often blown up in the Netherlands, and this movie is just an other example. But even then, the movie could be very nice if the story was okay told. Now there are major jumps in time: one day KLaas is just an ordinary drug-boy, the next shot he seems to be a big player in the drug-scene. Nobody knows how's that possible (except for those who read the book). The acting is really bad, the non-Dutch movie-watchers get to see one of the worst actresses in the Netherlands: Chantal Janzen. When you think she finally gets naked, then you are watching a stand in model. So: bad acting + bad montage + crap story = De Dominee.

Please don't watch it, even if other people say it's good, because it isn't. I've warned you.

To begin with, I have to admit I've never been a big fan of the Dutch movie-genre. Unfortunately watching De Dominee hasn't made me change my mind. It shares some common flaws, like having a plot that's too predictable and linear for my taste.

Worse however is that the cast has their dialogues as if they were stage-actors in a play. Unfortunately this is common too in many Dutch movies and, at least to me, makes it impossible to feel any kind of involvement with the main characters.

The actor that plays Adri (I'm sorry, I forgot his name at the moment) is at least delivering a decent performance, and is one of the reasons I don't rate this movie even worse.Another reason is the fact that at least it seems to have had some budget, and the production seems professional.

Ironically the fact that the acting is often too articulated might not be so much of a problem if you don't speak Dutch,although I already warned you that the plot isn't spectacular either, but at least it might make it an acceptable movie to watch.

The brands in this film, like Suit Supply, take away from the story, cause it's supposed to be set in the eighties. It's not a very thrilling film. Also, the single from Intwine on the soundtrack is very bad, it has a chorus that is repeated numerous times', like "I'm a cruel man, I take it all away, I'm a cruel man I'm here to stay.." Jeeez couldn't those asswipes have come up with something better than that? I guess they wrote it in a couple of minutes..

It's really annoying, just like the product placement in this filmproduct,that cashes in on the controversy and publicity around a criminal who should not be a celebrity like he is now made out to be, but should be forgotten like rats ought to be.