not horrible nor great

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Brilliant Conflict

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A movie about shifting allegiances, secrets and betrayals.One has to admire the originality, ingenuity and clock-work precision of Bart De Pauw's screenplay : it's a work of art. De Pauw, an asset to Flemish comedy and thriller writing both, has done some excellent work and "Loft" is one of the highlights of his career.The movie is characterized by an admirable unity of artistic vision : it is "Loft" from the first second to the last, without tonal shifts or missteps. It is also notable for breathing claustrophobic and disillusioned noir, a rare achievement in Flemish film.Sadly "Loft" didn't grip and involve me as much as it should have. In a certain sense it was too well done - too cerebral, too clever, too coldly abstract. It also struck me as over-convoluted, with too many people whose secrets had secrets, whose agendas had agendas and whose lies had lies. (In fairness it should be noted that I have watched the movie with other viewers, who were riveted to the point of sitting on the edge of their seats and failing to breathe.) Still, the movie was deadly accurate in pointing out that there exist "friendships" which are nothing else than egotism or rivalry turned inside-out.

Full of twists & turns from start to finish, Loft concerns a group of 5 friends, all of them married, who share the ownership of a secret loft together where they meet their mistresses. One day, they find a woman's dead body lying in the room but there are only 5 keys to the apartment, meaning that one of them is probably involved in what appears to be a cold-blooded murder. And thus begins the blame game where each person begins suspecting the other one of committing the crime & collectively try to solve the mystery before police come knocking at the door.Directed by Erik Van Looy, the film smartly intertwines present with flashbacks to give viewers the backstory of each of its characters & create fresh doubts in their minds about who could be the real suspect among these. The writing is equally good too as each character is presented in a grey shade, thus making it difficult for the viewers to converge on a single suspect until the film reveals all on its own. The acting is quite convincing by its ensemble cast, cinematography makes great use of lighting, editing is brilliantly carried out & the music is a big plus here.There is no denying that viewers will try to solve this mysterious puzzle as soon as the film begins since no time is wasted in taking a linear approach and yet, the film will be able to surprise most of them not once but multiple times. On an overall scale, Loft is an amazing mystery thriller that is cleverly plotted, has an atmosphere of tension & suspicion from the very beginning, is perplexing but never confusing to the extent that makes the viewers reject it outright & didn't put a foot wrong until the film's third act, which is the only part that disappointed me though not majorly & will even work for most.Out of the very few Belgian films that I've seen so far, this one is arguably my new favorite as of now. And I've no problem in recommending this film to anyone for it has the charged tension of a Hitchcock thriller & really deserves a wider audience. So, give it a try before Hollywood comes up with a remake, which actually is coming out later this year, probably in August, helmed by director Van Looy only.

Vincent Stevens, the architect of a cutting edge modern building, has something to share with his good friends. He decided to convert the loft on the roof of the structure as a bachelor pad for himself and his pals, so they can have their fun in complete privacy. To that effect, when he gathers the men, he distributes one key to each one; there are no duplicates, so each person is responsible for his own key, which they must never give away, or even lend to anyone else.This exclusive sort of club includes Stevens, and his yuppie comrades. Only one of the friends is a bachelor, but that soon will change when he marries a wealthy heiress. The men are all married, although not too happily, as it turns out. The friendship among all these men are put to a test when a woman is found dead on the huge bed that dominates the apartment. All of them are in some way connected. The truth about the slaying comes out as all the men are questioned by the police. Anyone of this group could have committed the crime, yet nothing is clear in the narrative until the surprise ending.Eric Von Looy, the director of "Loft" has explored the kind of people at the center of the film before with his "Yuppies". This new venture proves Mr. Von Looy is a director with a great visual style in the way he presents the story about loyalty and betrayal. This film should be seen by a wider audience. We were lucky to have found a copy of this Belgian film, but we don't think it had a commercial run that we know of.The director gets great acting from all the principals, Koen De Bouw, Filip Peeters, Matthias Schoenaerts, Bruno Vanden Broucken, and Koen De Graeve are all excellent as the friends that share the loft. Veerle Baetens is fine as well as Ann. Marie Vinck, who plays Sarah Delporte, impressed with her take on her character.Of course, Mr. Von Looy was lucky in working with the fine Danny Elsen, a good cameraman that captures all the nuances of the action in vivid detail. Wolfman De Marco's contributed the soundtrack that plays well with the narrative. We shall be looking forward the next project of this talented director, and so will be the lucky viewers of his films.

After the buzz flying 'round my ears for weeks and weeks already, I started to prepare myself for the worst-case-scenario; the nightmare come true: a mediocre by-the-numbers little thriller, about as unsatisfying as one of Stephen King's less inspired pulp scribblings. Luckily giant relief soon replaced my skeptic approach. Hollywood-style? Yes, but not an inferior copy. One of the first scenes bring to mind the opening sequence of 'Inside Man', a man dead on his feet grilled by two unrelenting policemen, he stammers a fogy story, a story that makes less and less sense with each new sentence uttered; the intrigues spreads through the audience, let the games begin!The gorgeous stylized look captured my attention immediately, cinematographically 'Loft' without a doubt means a new high for production values in Belgian cinema. The exploration of the murder-site with the camera's eye (not during the initial discovery of the dead body but a handful of minutes later) astonishes, impossible angles, a sensually swinging camera, death and sex captured in a few seconds of film. The cool, modern design of the loft, and just the fact that we're dealing with a loft here, symbolizes the decadence, of which every character's guilty of, beautifully, and the coldness buried in most of the characters. Predictability can rapidly transform a promising thriller with tons of A-scenes to a B-film beyond redemption (the anti-metamorphosis of the butterfly; from near-godly winged creature back to fat caterpillar). Predictabillity and plot randomness.- what I like to name 'the Perfect Stranger phenomenon (arrange for multiple plausible endings as a result of the vagueness of the plot, and then choose the one that test audiences prefer). 'Loft' is neither! The script is sly en never insults the audience's intelligence. You can see head writer De Pauw spent a lot of time perfecting a diamond in the rough into a three carat one. I personally prefer this more minimalistic (less locations, less movement in the scenes), more plot-driven film over Van Looy's previous. But naturally, this is anything but an insult for 'The Memory of a Killer'. Now let's get to the acting department. There's loads to admire on the silver screen, Filip Peeters gets the most substance to chew on, Bruno Vanden Broucke descends deep into his character, one that heavily contrasts with his usual type of character, only Koen De Bouw pales in comparison to his performance in 'The Memory of a Killer'. Again, this is not an insult, that performance easily ranks among the best of 2003. The part of Filip Willems (played Matthias Schoenaerts) interested me the least, but his presence is unavoidable (for the plot). Now, the small shortage of psychological depth is a minor blemish, certainly because the believability of the plot exists only by the strength of the believability of the characters' motivations. A few extra scenes possibly could be of use to solve this problem, but more than likely would mean a loss of some tension.My heart rate went up, adrenaline pumping, and those icy looks of Bruno Vanden Broucke will not soon fade from memory...