Keeley Coleman
The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Brennan Camacho
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
Cissy Évelyne
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Francene Odetta
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
petra
When the movie started i felt good. Hilde De Baerdemaeker is a good flemish actress and i love Gent and i was happy to see the city i know so well in a movie. I liked the first half hour very much... but it went downwards after that. Hilde (Eva) played very well, but that was about it. At the ending, where they "all" are at "Le Vallon", it became worse. I kept hoping the ending would make the film right, but it didn't. It's too bad Verheyen couldn't keep the level of the first half hour of the movie. I gave it a 6 and that is mild.
DjiM007
This movie was an absolute waste of money (for me buying a ticket and for the Flemish govt. paying for the production). Even though the beginning of the movie is okay, it gets worse and worse and keeps getting worse; ending up as a terrible movie. Awful acting, bad and uninspired camerawork, a terrible story, this movie has it all. Jan Verheyen, the director, makes it all too easy for the audience (at the end of the movie one of the main character just tell the story in 2 minutes instead of telling it with images) and directs this movie as if it were a (bad) theatre play. When Hilde Van Mieghem starts acting as in a theatre play too, things go wrong. Really wrong. Even I can do better. This movie stinks and the people who gave it a score of 10, don't know anything about movies (and they probably think that 'shrek' is the scariest movie ever made).
Jos Wolffers
"De Alias" is Belgium's first true high-profile exploitation movie. You might not guess it by the looks of the poster, and even the trailer merely suggest a slick thriller, but nothing could be further from the truth. Director Jan Verheyen artfully combines a romantic encounter with some pretty twisted twists."De Alias" gets off to a tense start, when a man is being dragged from his isolation-cell in some loony-bin, is being put in a car, smacked in the face and driven off a cliff. The police barely has a clue what might have happened, so the case is quickly closed.Flash-forward to the city of Ghent, where two girls (newcomer Hilde De Baerdemaker and Veerle Dobbelaere) by accident film the apparent suicide of a beautiful young girl, who jumps naked out of a forth-story window. A little later, the girls are nearly robbed of their camcorder, if it hadn't been for a mysterious stranger (Geert Hunaerts), who beats up the thugs and returns the camera. Eva, one of the girls, is immediately smitten with the hero, and decides to go for a drink with him. But little does she know that the stranger may, or may not have anything to do with the girl's suicide earlier on ...When reading this, you might think that this looks like the outline for yet another predictable thriller. Wrong! Screenwriters Verheyen, Dirickx and Koeck have made considerable effort to create a twisty, yet believable story, that goes pretty far, without losing it's credibility. The first half of the film moves along smoothly while introducing the characters, raising the tension and revealing the true identity of the mysterious stranger. But it's only in the second half of the film that the plot takes a turn for the worst and the pace really picks up. The viewer is being thrown from one revelation into the next, while the protagonists are dropping like flies. Voyeurism, sex, violence, incest ... you name it, "De Alias" has it all, and still manages to be neither gratuitous nor tasteless. Director Jan Verheyen is obviously very fond of the '70s trash-cinema and enthusiastically recycles those themes into a truly exciting and gripping film. Some films he may or may not be paying direct homage to are "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", "Psycho" and "Se7en". Just look at one of the final scenes, where the protagonist is invited to a macabre dinner-party, or the scene where the killer's father is reloading his gun, while his terrified victim has to watch him. Truly cinema at it's weirdest.Despite all these merits, the film does have a couple of flaws, not in the least the terrible performance by Veerle Dobbelaere. She simply isn't up to par. For some reason she doesn't look the part and has difficulty making her character believable. On the other hand, the performances by Hilde De Baerdemaker and especially Geert Hunaerts, are excellent. The direction and photography are exceptionally good (especially for a Flemish film), the music is appropriate and for once the dialogue isn't predictable and idiotic.In short: like Verheyen's previous film "Team Spirit", "De Alias" is one of those rare Flemish films that succeeds in being different, without forgetting to be good. If you enjoy a weird film, you might like this one. (7.5/10)
maniac-32
I saw this film at a sneak conference at Kinepolis Brussels. 'De Alias' was promoted as a chiller. Well, I can tell you I didn't 'chill' for a moment. This is a boring movie plagued by a plot which is way too simple. The acting is bad, except Geert Hunaerts, Hilde Van Mieghem and Pol Goossen. The ending makes up for a lot and you can tell by looking at the final quarter of the movie that director Jan VErheyen has what it takes to direct a thriller. But in this cases, the plot and the average acting ruin the film.