Well this was a highly enjoyable surprise! Who would have thought that a film focusing on a white Dutch rapper and the traumatic events he experienced in one night would be so gripping?
The central character, Richie is a rapper, on the cusp of hitting the really big-time – a major stadium concert the next day, a major label recording deal in the works – but who has his treasured watch stolen from him, the whole event being filmed and then streamed, and this then having a catastrophic effect on his tough street image as shown through social media. He goes after the thieves but things do not go according to plan.
The central character was very sympathetically portrayed by the lead Jonas Smulders who became increasingly sympathetic and rounded as the film progressed. And the entourage surrounding him were likewise carefully and fully realized characters who showed development as the film progressed. All this greatly helped to involve one in the film and the situation, even if it initially, certainly to me, seemed like the last sort of film and setting in which I would be interested. Characters and their relationships developed and changed plausibly and the ending was also very good – it could have been just sentimental (and, yes, there was an element in there – but the balance was very skillfully held by the writer and director so that at the end we felt the ending was both true and dramatically and emotionally satisfying.
It was a decent length too – near real-time and concise enough to help with dramatic tension. A good film.