‘Klokkenluider’ movie review: Neil Maskell’s debut is hilariously tense
British actor Neil Maskell, known for his efforts in Ben Wheatley’s Kill List as well as Peaky Blinder, Utopia, Football Factory and Rise of the Footsoldier, has made his first foray into directing with Klokkenluider, a project starring Amit Shah, Sura Dohnke, Tom Burke, Roger Evans and Jenna Coleman, a black comedy with several shades of the political thriller.
The film’s title is Dutch for bell ringer, used to describe a whistleblower, a person who reveals a government or organisation’s nefarious or illegal activity. Shah plays ‘Mr. Appleby’, an IT worker, comes across a shocking discovery within the British government that means the entire country or perhaps even the world, is “completely fucked”.
He hides out in a rented Belgian countryside manor, waiting for a journalist to come and receive the details and leak them to the public. Mr Appleby and his wife (Dohnke) are in the throes of serious anxiety, wary that they are now whistleblowers and their lives are undoubtedly at risk.
The couple are soon joined by two supposed bodyguards, Glynn and Kevin, who are caught up in their unique relationship and will apparently protect Mr and Mrs Appleby while waiting for the journalist to show up. Tom Burke and Roger Evans are on fire, providing the film’s funniest moments.
Glynn and Kevin are largely fed up with one another and their security work, which ultimately turns sinister later in the movie, and their relationship is one of genuine intrigue and undoubted humour. The tension of the film primarily comes from us wondering just what it is that Mr. Appleby (pseudonym, of course) knows that he’s so keen to inform the press of.
And the fact that the secret knowledge is kept confidential from the audience even when the couple tell Glyn and Kevin is not a mere narrative gimmick. By keeping the information secret, we focus on Glyn and Kevin’s desire to hide away from it, in line with how Mr Appleby wishes he could have erased it from his mind. Simply, there is bliss in ignorance.
The score ramps up the tension with stringed moments and electronica in equal measure. Maskell does an excellent job directing his cast and crew to deliver a genuinely impressive debut. There are certainly nods to the tragicomic playwrights of yore, with a feeling of the four characters waiting for something that might never arrive whilst harbouring a dark secret à la Samuel Beckett.
And when Jenna Coleman’s journalist character does arrive, bolshy and with a tongue that would make your grandmother cry, the real motive is slowly and teasingly revealed. It always feels like there will be a plot twist in Klokkenluider, but we’re never quite sure if it will come.
The brilliance of any mystery is to keep an audience guessing, and Maskell manages to do that in his debut from the off. Klokkenluider is confident enough to cut the runtime to under 90 minutes, and because of that, it’s jam-packed full of humour that lands intrigue, deception and curiosity.
