Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Lack of good storyline.

Just perfect...

Good concept, poorly executed.

This movie is stunningly made, has great acting and wonderful cinematography - what a shame all this talent is wasted on such a moronic story. I am struggling to find a single scene in this movie that made any sense what so ever. Everything every character does in this movie is absurd. The "story" concerns a boy who has the misfortune to have not only the most bizarre father in the world but also the most bizarre mother in the world. The father is a sociopath of the first order and the mother is just plain away with the pixies. It is unclear if the mother was raped or not, but whatever, the mother is happy enough to stay with the father for 6 weeks, then leaves when she finds she is pregnant, as you do. At their new house they find some old books, which the boy reads and becomes a genius, as you do. Despite being a genius when the boy gets older he buys a cigar store (as you do) way down an alley – clearly Marketing 101 was not included in the books he read. Despite the fact that it seems to be constantly raining, it is not apparent that the cigar shop floods every time it rains. Bizarrely, the previous owner of this shop, volunteers his contact information (as you do), so they can get his help if needed. Of course, this address is a fake. What is the point of that, apart from filling in a few minutes of the movie? Our hero is now in big trouble, he has taken out a loan to buy this ridiculous shop – obviously the Bank is as idiotic as he is. He finds to his horror that the bank is owned by his father. For some reason this is seen to be bad, although quite frankly he owes his Father a big thank you for funding such a ridiculous investment. He fronts up to the lawyers and in a spectacular travesty of optical theory is almost blinded by the reflection from the nice shiny brass name plaques. Here he meets a guy with a pronounced underbite - the point of this abnormality is a mystery - is it supposed to be funny? On his way out some English visitors arrive. Since our hero has read a couple of random English books he is a whiz at fluent spoken English in any situation. Despite the fact that the Dutch and the English seem to be communicating fine without him for some reason the boy's wondrous command of English saves the day and he is immediately given a job. Notwithstanding that his father is supposed to be a raving maniac who throws sick women into the road, he allows his son an incredibly generous repayment scheme. Despite this generosity for some reason we are supposed to think the Father is treating him badly. The son duly pays off his debt to his father and blow me down if he doesn't immediately take out another, larger loan from him, under ridiculously draconian terms. Apparently this is to prove something, but all it proves to me is that the boy is an idiot. Yet again we are supposed to think that this act of stupidity on the part of the son is another demonstration of the evilness of the Father. The son works his way up the firm and finally gets his legal degree. There are various diversions along the way. Some flossy is hanging round him in the office but because the boy has the emotional age of a 2 year old he doesn't do anything about that. This flossy invites herself back to his place (as you do) and immediately finds a door that the son had never noticed. We are introduced to a guy called Jan, who is a communist, but he does nothing in the movie apart from adding 10 minutes of padding. The bizarre father attempts to evict someone in the middle of a battle zone, as you do. For some reason a man steps out to shoot the father. For some reason he misses, from a distance of about 3 feet. A soldier then shoots this person. The boy randomly meets his father in an alley. They fight. The father throws a penknife, as you do. Evidently Rotterdam is a very small place, possibly about 100 square meters. The son and father just happen to meet in an alley. The father just happens to emerge from a canal opposite the mother's house. The son just happens to run into his flossy on the beach. He just happens to run into again later on in a park with his mother. The only scene in which we might get some insight to the Father is in a dream. Ultimately it means nothing. The father visits the mother and implies he is being mean to the son to build his character. Yes, that's right, after being brought up in poverty, being abused all his life for having no father and with a nut case of a mother for company, we wouldn't want him to be soft would we? Eventually the son leaps over a desk at his father (as you do), his father beats the living daylights out of him, and later kills himself with a penknife that would be lucky to penetrate his coat. The son is brought to the Police Station and interviewed by two of the nicest, most trustworthy men you could hope to meet. Our hero regales them with his life story, as you do in this type of situation. Eventually the son is proved innocent using forensic evidence the technology for which didn't exist in that era. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Karakter is one of those films that if you don't understand it, you will never learn to appreciate it. Essentially, it is about Jacob Katadreuffe (Fedja van Huet) who was forsaken by his formidable father Dreverhaven (Jan Decleir) when he was only a baby and used his own talents and hard work to attain a higher station in life. But it is about much more than that. It is about real human beings who struggle with themselves and with each other in order to make sense out of their own lives and to find their place in dynamic, puritan universe that is Holland.Dreverhaven hates his son Jacob, because the latter reminds him of the one great sin he committed in his life -- namely, having an affair with a woman who was not his wife. This may seem surprising, because Dreverhaven had a fearsome reputation for physically throwing out tenants who could not pay their rent and taking to court those who defaulted on his loans. Yet, Dreverhaven lived in a puritanical world where making wealth by hard work, discipline and sheer ruthlessness was considered a virtue, while having children out of wedlock was not. Since he succeeded in that world more than most other people, he was changed by it in a more profound way. But Dreverhaven was also capable of changing more positive ways. He develops a respect for Jacob, when his son triumphantly overcomes the challenges he puts before him. Dreverhaven's respect for his son conflicts with his hatred of him and he never seems able to reconcile the two emotional impulses.Then we have Jacob Katadreuffe who knows what grinding poverty feels like, especially when his mother (Tamar van den Dop) decides the time has come for him to move out. As it turns out, his mother was on the right track. Jacob was cleverer than his peers. He learnt the English language simply by reading books he found in his new house. Informed by a friend that the Communists were gaining new members, Jacob observed that unemployment was up as well -- he obviously knew that most people would leave the Communist party once they found jobs that paid the rent and other living expenses. After a business reversal (which taught him how businessmen cheat each other), Jacob Katadreuffer finally begins his meteoric rise to prominence only to come into conflict -- by a strange and unexpected twist of fate -- with his father Dreverhaven.Finally, we have a murder mystery. Dreverhaven was found in the basement of his wear house with a knife lodged in his stomach and his estranged son, Jacob Katadreuffe, was the last person known to have seen him.Over the course of the film, director Max van Diem brilliantly interweaves these three strands together. He is assisted by a very capable group of actors. Jan Decleir is absolutely brilliant as Dreverhaven, who is a special kind of villain, because he has depth, a soul and inspires a certain degree of sympathy. Dreverhaven is probably one of the hardest roles to play, but Jan Decleir pulls it off without a hitch. Fedja van Huet is also impressive as Jacob Katadreuffe, a man so consumed with ambition that he makes no room for any real personal life. Towards the end, one feels he may become the same man his father was. Van den Dop also gives a fine performance as the reserved and quiet mother to Jacob. Finally, Paleis van Boem's riveting score really contributes to the plot and the general atmosphere of the film. These days, it is rare to see a film about real people trying to work out their own internal and external conflicts. They do so without special effects, without explosions and for the most part without violence. This is one of the most interesting and intense films I have seen in recent times and it is tragic that Hollywood does not make more films like this one.

A generally well made movie with a very dubious message: the best way to raise your children is to treat them like garbage. This movie is based on a 1920s book, and that message might seem resonant with the values of that era. But it's strange to listen to this kind of litany in a contemporary movie. To summarize the plot a bit, the film is about a young man, son of an unwed and stern woman, whose career is made almost impossible by his natural father, a thoroughly repellent individual, whose job seems to be to evict the poor from their homes when they can't pay their debts. The father tries every tactic to harass his son and to bring him into bankruptcy. What is most shocking is that the movie seems to imply that the father really loves his son, and all the wretched things he does to him are in order to build his character (hence the title) and become a successful person in society. Summing up, a well made movie with a message that seems a relic from a previous era.

It is not too frequent that we get Dutch programmes of films or TV-minis in this corner of Europe, and when they do appear it is thanks to the regional Basque TV Station `EITB'. Indeed over two years has passed since seeing the excellent mini `Charlotte Sophie Bentinck' (1996) (qv) and seeing the very interesting `Karakter' recently. Set in the 1920's this film has excellent mise-en-scéne wonderfully photographed, mostly in Holland and Belgium, but with some scenes shot in Wroclaw, Poland, with street-cars of the times, in which the darkened almost greyish brickwork of the tenement buildings and the industrial port areas takes on an intense protagonism in the film's development. Palais van Boem's musical contribution is mostly just right, though at times seemed to be a little boorish.A young, illegitimate boy grows up with his unmarried mother, whilst the father, Dreverhaven, continuously appeals to her to marry him, but always rejected. However, the father seems to do everything possible to disrupt the young man's life, as his mother becomes more and more detached and uncaring. It would seem that Dreverhaven is playing out a real-life game of chess around his son Jacob, as if trying to corner him into submission and apathy, but which the young man manages to survive. The psychological impression is that one or the other would undo his `bitter foe', but that despite the father's vast fortune and power the struggle of will would rebound against him.But as the Dutch saying goes: ‘De één zijn dood, is de ander zijn brood'This is no `thriller' in the ordinary sense, more a psychological suspense which requires attention throughout. The acting is magnificent: both Fedja van Huêt and Jan Decleir play out their parts with just the right touch, especially Decleir, and Lou Landré as Rentenstein is almost spellbinding, not to be missed.Here is another example of the unarguable fact: here in Europe we make cinema, not blockbuster box-office hits.