Kidnapping Mr. Heineken

Studio: Alchemy
Directed by Daniel Alfredson

Mar 02, 2015 By Austin Trunick Web Exclusive

Amsterdam, November of 1983: masked men kidnap brewing magnate Freddy Heineken and his chauffeur, Ab Doderer. At the time, Heineken was one of the Netherlands’ wealthiest billionaires; his kidnappers were five local, working class men—childhood friends—who had run into financial troubles. They spent two years carefully planning the kidnapping and held Heineken for what was a record-setting ransom. The anonymous kidnappers became the target of a well-publicized, nationwide manhunt.

Daniel Alfredson’s Kidnapping Mr. Heineken chronicles the famous abduction from the criminals’ point of view. Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten, and Jim Sturgess play the gang’s ringleaders, and Anthony Hopkins goes full Lecter as the cool-headed and manipulative Freddy Heineken. The film is surprisingly successful at humanizing the kidnappers, portraying them as down-on-their-luck everymen and making it possible for audience to sympathize with extortionists. The film’s most fascinating sections are when it follows their criminal planning process: building a hidden, sound-proof cell in a rented garage, casing their victims’ movements, collecting a ransom without being caught, and so forth. The audience is made aware early that the film is based on real events, and watching how such a big heist was actually pulled off has a morbid appeal.

The film lags a bit post-kidnapping, once the group falls into the same in-fighting and paranoia we’ve seen in dozens of other heist movies, but for the most part it’s an engrossing and tense true-crime caper.

Reviews