Schneider vs. Bax (2015)

8/10

larrys330 October 2016

This wild and dark Dutch film is not for everyone, but for those viewers who like all kinds of strange twists and surprises in their movies, this one could well be to your liking.

Tom Dewispalaere stars as Schneider, a contract killer who reluctantly takes a job on his birthday, as he's assured that the "hit" will be quick and simple, on a writer living in an isolated lakeside bungalow. Alex van Warmerdan, who also wrote and directed the film, co-stars as Bax the supposed intended victim.

However, I probably don't have to tell you that things will definitely not go according to plan, beginning with Bax's daughter Francisca (Maria Kraakman) showing up at the bungalow. From that point on, they'll be a whole series of bizarre happenings, that just get darker and darker as the movie progressed. To be aware,they'll be lots of drug usage on screen, a couple of scenes of nudity, an attempted sexual molestation, and, of course, lots of violence as you'd expect here.

All in all, if this type of black humor is done well, as I thought this one certainly was, it can be a real treat. Although some of the plot elements didn't make complete sense and I wasn't thrilled with the ending, the overall scope of the film made it really enjoyable for me.

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8/10

Interesting

avzwam9 December 2016

Warning: Spoilers

In my opinion this latest van Warmerdam movie is a vast improvement over the one that came before namely "Borgman" which I didn't understand. It could be me but I just didn't get it. This new one however is a lot more coherent and focused, I would say.

The movie held my attention throughout its running time and I was genuinely fascinated, entertained and interested. It's an effective film in the sense that it really does create e.g. suspense and tension. Technically it's well done as well; it looks great and it's well edited and so on.

I said I didn't understand/get "Borgman". I would be lying if I said I did get this one. If there's anything to get, that is. Maybe there's nothing to get? Maybe it's just a story for the sake of one? Is there a message/point? I'm not really sure. I don't know why Schneider didn't kill Francisca. He was pretty much a cold blooded killer up until then. So why the change? Where's the character development? Did the fact he unintentionally killed Gina change something? Why? Why did it change something? I don't know. I'm pretty sure he didn't choose not to kill Francisca because she was naked. So there has to be some other reason. But I don't know (yet) what that is.

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8/10

A western in a swamp

lakroon20 March 2022

This could be a Van Warmerdam for beginners. It has the typical Van Warmerdam weird style, but the story still kind of makes sense. After his quite dark (but great) movie Borgman, this one is a bit more lighthearted.

Two quite capable killers / fathers are commissioned to take each other out for unclear reasons. There are whoever many people walking in the way and they would like to get the job done without to much collateral damage. In a way many of the characters in this film are more like 'real people' than in the average film. Many, but not all, its still a Van Warmerdam..

I really liked it.

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Another brilliant movie by Alex van Warmerdam

ludmillaherni27 January 2019

After 'Abel', 'de Noordelingen ', 'kleine Teun', 'de jurk' and many others, this is another example of Alex' special, wonderful qay of storytelling. He has this very special way of filming in a hyper-realistic fimstyle, with an ironic sense of humor. You have to understand 'the language'. The situations are absurd, the human relations are often distorted, the humor is wry. I love it! Who needs music, when a movie is this brilliant?

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7/10

Comedic and silly

sergelamarche28 January 2022

Warning: Spoilers

Rather hilarious situation(s) between professional killers and their families. Especially Bax's family. Suspense and comedy but above all intriguing to know how this crazy story can end.

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9/10

of complication

album-228 May 2015

I was not particularly interested in Schneider vs. Bax, although I am quite a Van Warmerdam-fan – especially after his magnificent movie, Borgman. I thought it would be a dark, sombre, shoot 'm up, where man's barbarous, grimy soul would be shown. But the movie proved me wrong. It is a far more comic and playful film than I suspected. Yes, it is a shoot 'm up: a hunt between two hit man. But it is as far removed from ordinary man hunt movie as can be. The grim, dark humor of Van Warmerdam, the beautiful northern Dutch water landscape and the intricate script makes it a great movie experience. Schneider vs. Bax is the next great Van Warmerdam film.

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5/10

Slightly bizarre crime thriller

rubenm28 September 2015

Alex Van Warmerdam is a director with a very distinguishable cinematographic style. In most of his films, everything is just a little bit out of the ordinary, but it's hard to say why exactly. 'Schneider vs Bax' is no exception.

Nevertheless, I think this film is not as good as most of his other movies. This is a crime thriller about contract killers, and in such a film even Van Warmerdam needs a script that's tight and logical. Unfortunately, it is neither. There are strange, inexplicable events, the story swerves in all directions, and there is not really a lot of suspense.

You could argue that Van Warmerdam's unique, slightly bizarre style of film making compensates for these flaws. For some this might be the case, for me it wasn't. The unique Van Warmerdam chemistry of some of his other films didn't work as well in this one.

Still, there is much to enjoy. The phlegmatic way the killers behave, as if what they do is just as ordinary as baking a cake or driving a truck, is a nice feature. There is also the Dutch landscape of treeless lakes and flat marshes, with one wooden house in which much of the action takes place.

But overall, I think this film could have been a lot better with a script in which every action is functional and every person behaves logical. The acting was also a bit uneven. I liked Tom Dewispelaere as Schneider, but Van Warmerdam himself as Bax was less convincing. Maria Kraakman played a nice part as Bax's depressive daughter who seems to be a damsel in distress, but at the end enjoys pulling the trigger as much as the contract killers.

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9/10

Subversion, suspense and sanguine

bhargmankodi19 June 2020

I love this film. There is no background music it's set in bright daylight. How does Warmerdam accomplish this?

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1/10

Awful!

tabjeep3 December 2015

I really cannot understand how this movie got rated with 7 stars. I'm from Europe and I've got to admit that I'm not a fun of European films. We really suck on that field... most of films luck in just a little bit of everything.

So does this film. No music score at all, no acting, no scenario and completely awful landscape. Of course there are twists and turns in this movie but cause of bad acting, filming and no music at all ends up completely spineless.

A few characters show up completely out of the blue, adding nothing to the "so called" story, and everything got lost by the end. Avoid this "for god sake" 7-star rated movie. I think my next choice will be Bolywood. Im sure they are 100% better than this European "masterpiece".

Plain waste of time. Keep yourselves away from this...

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9/10

Thrilling Dark Comedy

Blue-Grotto8 November 2015

Schneider and Bax have a lot in common. Each is a hit man. They are both good at what they do. They also work for the same employer. Each, amazingly, has a job to do at the same time and on the same day. Also, both are targets. Each is unknowingly tasked with killing the other. This is where the similarities end however. Schneider and Bax have opposite styles, personalities and lives. Schneider is a family man, or at least he appears to be. He lives in the city and is methodical, devious and relentless in going about business. Bax, on the other hand, is carefree and lighthearted. This relaxed attitude is aided considerably by the heavy doses of drugs and alcohol he consumes. With his nightmare of a girlfriend and family, he probably needs them. As Schneider closes in on Bax the latter is visited, in turn, by his daughter, father and girlfriend, each of whom is unstable and volatile.

This thrilling dark comedy is full of twists and turns as the hit men are constantly dealing with complications they did not expect. Alex van Warmerdam also directed Borgman, which is as zany as it is creepy (I loved it). Like Borgman, Schneider vs. Bax is also very different from traditional Hollywood slop, and van Warmerdam adds much more humor to the mix this time. The acting, directing, images and storyline are all good. The film falters only in that not enough money and talent was provided in order to move the film to the next level. Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015.

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3/10

No Crackers

popcolin16 January 2020

A scene nearing the third act - no spoilers - revolves around a character (played by the writer and director) insisting there are crackers in the cabinet only to realize in fact there are no crackers in the cabinet. That pretty much sums up the movie for me. It is incredibly slow and predictable after the first build-up and plays out very systematically until the end. I was a huge fan of Borgman but this movie feels like a step backwards, like borgman made for children but messed up so it's technically for adults. But take out the guns and violence and drug references and change everyone to kids with paintball guns having a fun Saturday in the fields then wow what a movie. But we end up instead with something that comes across as incredibly pretentious, thinking itself of a higher standard than a randomized cat & mouse game movie popular in the 1980s but absolutely nothing new here. That's my opinion. I did however enjoy some of the conversations between Bax and the daughter. The drug references were also very clever.

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9/10

it is the exception to the rule

rdvljunk14 June 2015

Warning: Spoilers

Although I'm dutch I have to admit, I generally hate dutch movies. The stupidity of the story lines/dialogs/scripts, combined with poor acting of self-proclaimed well-known-dutch-artists is something I'm often ashamed of. The last dutch movie I saw (Mt Ventoux) was so boring I almost fell asleep.

There are rare exceptions to the rule and this is one of them. It has all aspects of a good movie, it is sometimes hilarious, but also a good continuous tension, who will survive and who will die with an unexpected outcome. Yes sometimes there are fraction of the typical dutch movie, but they didn;t disturb me, the movie had my attention all the time. I admit I didn't want to go at first but I'm happy it proved to be the only valid options for that evening.

Highly recommended

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2/10

Bizarre but not bizarre enough

dragonfanloverofdragons29 January 2023

I don't know if this film tried to be an absurd comedy about competing assassins or a drama about a man trying to reconnect with his daughter, but it fails at both.

Stuff just happens without logical causes or consequences. For example, Schneider learns that he's being setup. What does he do with that information? Nothing. So what's the point of him learning it?

The film is full of these kind of things which makes watching it very boring.

It also doesn't help we never learn the characters motivations for doing things. It makes the weird things they do not just weird, but incomprehensible. In a good absurd film characters may have illogical reasons, but they do have them. Without, you can't know the characters and you just go: "oh, they're doing this now, I guess."

The dialogue is just bad.

The setting is boring. The film mostly takes place in Bax' house, which is completely white, and the surrounding swamp, which people keep wading into for no reason.

One thing I liked was when Bax' daughter, Francisca, locked herself in a room and the two were talking to each other through the door. The door then became a physical barrier symbolising the emotional barrier between the characters.

It's a shame she ran off into the swamp afterwards, because I feel this film really wanted to focus on their relationship.

It would have been better if Francisca showed up unannounced to try to repair her relationship with her dad. While Bax tries to make her leave, because he knows Schneider is coming, but he can't reveal to her he's an assassin. That could have been a very tense film.

Also, the film could have upped the absurdity. If the weird happenings actually impacted the plot it could be funny. The birthday thing, for example is underutilised, just like Schneider himself, but imagine if he's in the middle of trying to kill Bax, while at the same time on the phone with his wife to decide what flavour of birthday cake he wants.

As, it is though, the film is boring and not worth watching.

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9/10

Another great movie from the happy Van Warmerdam family

slootje127 June 2015

Warning: Spoilers

I'm a fan of actor-director-writer Alex van Warmerdam. This goes back to the 70 's, when he started with theater groups like Hauser Orkater and Mexicaanse Hond. I like his dry humor, his lugubrious stories, his absurd dialogs. That he likes to make crime thrillers is obvious. It was already there in many earlier movies like Grimm, Last Days of Emma Blank and Borgman of course. In Schneider vs. Bax (2015) he goes back to basic: hit-man Schneider (Tom Dewispelaere) has to kill Ramon Bax (Alex van Warmerdam).

Schneider gets the assignment just after his two young daughters sang happy birthday. He is not very willing to work, because of his birthday party tonight and he promised that he helped his wife with the preparation. But she understands - she is over the top understanding. And although he keeps up his unwilling attitude when he talks to his client Mertens (Gene Bervoets), he is going to do it.

Bax is in a lake house in the reeds. He kicks his girlfriend out, because his daughter is coming. I thought we had a serious relationship? We have, how can I prove it? To introduce me to your daughter. Not now, My daughter is a little bit troublesome. Indeed, his daughter Francisca (Maria Kraakman) is depressed and making a scene out of everything. He offers her different kind of drugs, but she refuses and condemns his drug use. I don't' say anything about you eating muesli, Bax replies. Muesli is disgusting and for goats. Francisca gets so frustrated that she runs away into the reeds, the swamp and the woods. In the woods she finds shelter in a desolated shed. Woods and sheds appear often in Van Warmerdam movies and plays. Bax is going to look for her, but cannot find her and returns to the lake house.

This is my only spoiler, although it doesn't reveal a lot. Maybe if I reveal the full synopsis, it even let you discover other elements, because you are not distracted by the tension of the story.

Schneider vs Bax is constantly thrilling. The absurd and hilarious dialogs and scenes don't interfere with this tension. It doesn't become ridiculous or implausible; they seem normal. On the contrary: the unexpected events yield greater tension. The unexpected can happen and is not strange at all. For me that is the heart of the work of Alex van Warmerdam.

There are no explanations or motifs. Why Schneider or Bax have to be killed is not mentioned for a second and it is not bothering the story. Why Schneider and Bax are hit-man? Nevertheless is Schneider vs. Bax highly entertaining and gripping. The acting is cool and straight forward, strictly directed by Alex van Warmerdam. His wife Annette Malherbe helped him, did also the casting (and plays a main role). The movie is recorded is Groningen, in the north of Holland. Good to see that we still have such empty places in our small, over-crowded country. It is crime, but not all hatred. In the end there is love. Between Bax and Francisca. Between Schneider and Gina. And the overall happy family of Schneider, his wife and two kids.

We saw the movie in the impressive film institute of Amsterdam, where they show a subtitled version. So foreigners can enjoy the movie too, but they miss a lot of nuances that cannot be translated. Even my wife and I talked about so many details, that cannot be captured in a review. Another great movie of the happy Van Warmerdam family!

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9/10

Highly entertaining

edbuurman25 September 2021

Typical Van Warmerdam movie: absurd and funny, and for most an acquired taste. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie but the ending was not satisfactory, as if they ran out of budget for a final part. Like jazz improv, I think an absurd plot should return (within reach) to a realistic home.

Two things bugged me though:

Drug use incapacitated a number of characters at different times, which seemed nonfunctional regarding the plot, unless the argument is to be able to shift focus to other characters. In this vein, it seemed unnecessarily crowded with characters that did not seem to add much (for example, Ramon's girlfriend)
Continuously running/locking in and out of rooms in this tiny bungalow (or through the reeds) seemed an unnecessary distraction as well, and looses its effect after a while.

I can't help but think that addressing the last two points could have been used to add a bit more depth to the characters, their relationships, or a more satisfying penultimate act.

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