European Films

An action-adventure set mostly at sea might sound like an unlikely production to come out of the country of the Dardenne brothers, but Belgian director Hans Herbots’ Windkracht 10: Koksijde Rescue (Storm Force), though from the other side of the language border, is exactly that. The Flemish spin-off from a successful local TV series never completely relinquishes its tube roots (especially in the script department) but its acting and technical prowess shout out for big-screen projection. The €4.5 million film was a hit in Flandres with over 225,000 visitors and has since been sold to numerous territories (though the film was nary a bleep on the radar of the neighbouring Netherlands). It could also function as a template for local remakes.

There is no overlap between the TV series and the film, so one can be enjoyed without having seen the other. Though the sea air rescue team is completely made up of Flemish speakers, the film itself nicely interweaves the multilingual working environment of the squadron, with victims also including French and non-native English speakers, which is a nice touch from screenwriter Pierre De Clercq (who also co-scripted the original TV series as well as Herbots' Flikken). Though the screenplay’s treatment of the Rick-Marleen-Koen triangle with its buried secrets and strategically placed flashbacks feels more like a multiple-episode story arc rather than something written directly for a film, De Clerq and Herbots nevertheless manage to create an engaging narrative that is perhaps slow out of the gate but steadily builds steam as the film progresses.

 

Windkracht 10 is almost two hours long and neatly divided into a set-up hour and pay-off hour, with the set-up hour leisurely taking its time for exposition, character development and  the obligatory stale humour of the buddy-cop variety. Stunts and special effects are kept small and simple here, though the second hour features not one but two spectacular rescue missions: the first involving a sailboat that has gone adrift in a rainstorm at night and the second a daytime rescue operation involving a burning cargo ship that is slowly sinking. Especially the latter sequence is impressively staged and features impeccable special effects.

 

Unlike director Erik Van Looy, who practically made a Flemish-spoken Hollywood thriller with De Zaak Alzheimer (The Alzheimer Case), Herbots does not blatantly copy US examples (though any scenes on any sinking ship are bound to bring back memories of Titanic). But Herbots' direction is not distinctive enough to make clear whether he wants to chart his own course or whether he is simply an inexperienced big-budget action director trying to make his scenes work. His work on the police TV series Flikken certainly did not prepare him for set pieces of this scale.

 

Kevin Janssens, the 2007 Belgian Shooting Star, is adequate as the square-jawed lead (he is definitely ready for Herbots’ numerous close-ups), though the obligatory love scene Janssens has with co-lead Veerle Baetens is strangely devoid of emotion from his side. It is in fact the women who really sell the movie emotionally: eye-catcher Baetens is dynamite as the tough cookie with a heart of gold, while Reymer equally impresses in what is essentially a throwaway role. Koen De Bauw, the Belgian Clive Owen-lookalike who played one of the leads in De Zaak Alzheimer, feels like a casting decision based on box-office drawing power only, but his role is relatively small and the script never really knows what to do with his character, throwing in a tepid love story that is never developed. Other supporting characters are allowed to be more one-dimensional and work better. 

 

Besides the numerous stunts and special effects, it is Danny Elsen’s cinematography that is one of the film’s most distinctive features, and its cinematic qualities help the film to distance itself from its TV series origins. The impeccably composed widescreen treatment is very effective and despite Elsen’s abundant use of filters and colour grading – golden greens during the day and cool blues at night – there is still more than enough detail even in the darker shots. Matt Dunkley's score never distracts from the action but never really helps is along either.

 

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