Reluctant to commit even in her professional life, Dutch therapist Nicoline (Carice van Houten) starts working at a jail. One of her charges is Idris (Marwan Kenzari), imprisoned several years ago for violent sexual offences. Nicoline is convinced the charming and manipulative Idris is still a danger but her colleagues do not agree. Eventually Nicoline herself begins to find the convict somewhat alluring.
While Nicoline falling for Idris' charms is crushingly predictable, it can at least be said this does not happen until the second half of the film! van Houten gives a good, wide-ranging performance, with Nicoline starting off coolly professional, then appalled and angered by her emotions. Kenzari has a difficult job in making Idris' manipulations obvious to the audience, but not so outrageous that the therapists' trust of him is breathtakingly unbelievable. I would not say he always hits the mark (but he does manage to look sexy despite a laughable hairstyle and the baggiest underpants I have seen in cinema for many a year).
There are times where the plot could have been tighter: Idris is implicated in the killing of the prison's pet rabbit but that does not prevent him from being given temporary release (admittedly I am not familiar with the Dutch penal system); and after a therapist is attacked by an inmate, unbelievably none of her colleagues come to see if she is all right! Those instances of sloppiness, plus the film's ultimate predictability, mean that although it was worth watching once, there is no need to watch it twice.
While Nicoline falling for Idris' charms is crushingly predictable, it can at least be said this does not happen until the second half of the film! van Houten gives a good, wide-ranging performance, with Nicoline starting off coolly professional, then appalled and angered by her emotions. Kenzari has a difficult job in making Idris' manipulations obvious to the audience, but not so outrageous that the therapists' trust of him is breathtakingly unbelievable. I would not say he always hits the mark (but he does manage to look sexy despite a laughable hairstyle and the baggiest underpants I have seen in cinema for many a year).
There are times where the plot could have been tighter: Idris is implicated in the killing of the prison's pet rabbit but that does not prevent him from being given temporary release (admittedly I am not familiar with the Dutch penal system); and after a therapist is attacked by an inmate, unbelievably none of her colleagues come to see if she is all right! Those instances of sloppiness, plus the film's ultimate predictability, mean that although it was worth watching once, there is no need to watch it twice.