Lack of good storyline.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

My attitude to physical effort is simple : I like to watch it from the sidelines, preferably with an alcoholic beverage in my hand. In winter the drink should be hot, in summer the drink should be cool, and that's it. This has always struck me as a nicely Belgian attitude. Sadly even here in Belgium we have spoilsports who wake up at five in the morning, take a bracingly cold shower, eat a healthy breakfast of fruit and rye bread, and go train for some demanding activity. We've got cyclists, tennis players, athletes - it's all very discouraging, but what are you going to do about it ?Still, if you want to meet the better kind of masochist you need to travel north, to the Netherlands, where vast amounts of people actually LIKE skating through freezing mist. The Netherlands, and especially Friesland, harbour one of the most daunting skating races known to mankind, the "tour of 11 cities". The tour can only be organized if all weather conditions are favourable (or rather, unfavourable) enough. Each individual tour is greeted with the sort of fervent extasy rarely seen outside a mystical context, with thousands of Dutchmen flocking to the sacred territory and hoping to write history. "The hell of 1963" is devoted to one of the harshest, cruelest tours in history, the tour of 1963. It's a nice enough movie with a nostalgic and typically Dutch feel. It's at its best when showing the beautiful landscapes and towns one meets along the route. There are also a number of fine skating scenes. On the other hand it's not a daring or innovative work : the characters and storylines are familiar, and the ending is unlikely to surprise anyone who has ever seen a traditional sports movie.Here and there the movie is marred by weird little missteps. There's a handful of characters, for instance, who are supposed to represent reporters and journalists : God knows who wrote their roles or lines, it's all pointless nonsense. But as a whole the movie is entertaining enough. Also a welcome occasion to hear our fine sister language Frisian.

The Eleven Cities ice skating race of 200 kilometers, edition 1963, has an infamous name in The Netherlands. So it should give enough inspiration for an exciting movie. I found the last minutes of this movie the most impressive: to see the real people, around whom the movie is centered. And the simple statement: "Of the 10,000 amateur skaters who took part in this race, only 69 managed to finish".In its execution, however, this movie has some big problems. Some of these have already been mentioned in the other reviews. My biggest objection was this: in the movie two languages are spoken: Dutch and Frisian. One of the main characters - Sjoerd, played by Lourens van den Akker - is not a native Frisian speaker and you can hear it. It's really terrible for people who can speak or understand Frisian. It's distracting, to say the least. This spoiled a lot for me. All other Frisian speaking actors are native speakers: that's how it should be!Question: how can Willeke van Ammelrooy play the mother of Chantal Janzen? What genius came up with that? On the other hand: I think Chris Zegers was cast properly, even though his hair was too long for 1963.What is also good about the movie are the cameos. Look at the full cast at IMDb and spot the famous people: professional ice skaters, an ice skating coach, the winner of the Elfstedentocht of 1997.Some scenes have been shot in Friesland, or look like they have been shot there, and some obviously have not been. Friesland does not have hills. Along the route are no woods. The weather was depicted as horrible, it's what we expect: legend has it, it was truly dreadful. The movie has some funny details as well, such as the smoking nurse in the hospital.I have given this movie a 6/10: the fact that it's there is good. The cameos are good. The weather is good. Most Frisian actors speak well. All other things are not good. Some director: please do this one more time! But better please!

It took a while for me to see this flick, and I was already weary after seeing the publicity stills, but it was much worse than I expected. I cannot believe it is being rated as high as it is. The director, Steven De Jong, directed a lot of children's films and it shows. The movie contains some of the worst acting in The Netherlands, which is a pity because there are actually some decent actors involved. The score is awful, pompous and would better fit Gladiator. The film is full of clichés, expect one every five minutes. Anachronisms occur throughout the movie: Holland did not look like this in 1963 (I was there!) and one of the main characters has a eighties hairdo. And on top of it all, the fake snow they sprayed on everyone, oh my God!! Don't bother watching it, it will save you a lot of frustration. If you're in for a laugh, buy it!

I do not understand how some people can classify this a masterpiece. It's junk: the storyline(s), the dialogs, the editing, the year 1963 is not accurately portrayed.Some examples: One of the (young) female actors escapes by faking that she is an doctor of medicine. In 1963 female doctors were very rare. The girl is about 20/22 years of ages, but she is taken seriously in her profession.The automobiles in the movie have YELLOW license plates, which were not introduced in the Netherlands before the early '80. The plates in 1963 were BLUE. The movie makers did feel the urge to take a simple screwdriver to fix the accurate plates. It tells you something about the amount of effort the movie makers are willing to put in their masterpiece.Then there is the story, which is an assembly of 4 stories, portrayed by 4 individuals that meet on the ice (3 men and 1 woman). They all have the same goal: to finish the race. Good idea, but it does not work. There are some unnecessary sidelines that distract from the main story lines. As a viewer you are hopping between the 4 story lines without feeling the intended emotions. The music is rather good. It could have taken me if there was anything to cling to.The dialogs do not fit in the year 1963. The sentences are full of 21th-century-vocabulairy. People talked and behaved differently in 1963. The movie makers never seem to bother. So, the feeling of being in the 60ties did never hit me.The accidents on the ice are disappointing. Some scenes in the movie are just tasteless. One of the main characters gets very hungry on the ice and starts hallucinating. The visualization of this looks like a poorly made you tube clip.Some of the special effects were nice. The cold weather is visualized by wolves that run through the clouds. They seem to be edited randomly and do not come to their full potential, but it looked nice. The ice, snow and wind are well done, also.Overall, I am disappointed. A monumental ice race, like the Elfstedentocht, deserves more respect than this.