Myriam Nys A movie about shifting allegiances, secrets and betrayals.One has to admire the originality, ingenuity and clock-work precision of Bart De Pauw's screenplay : it's a work of art. De Pauw, an asset to Flemish comedy and thriller writing both, has done some excellent work and "Loft" is one of the highlights of his career.The movie is characterized by an admirable unity of artistic vision : it is "Loft" from the first second to the last, without tonal shifts or missteps. It is also notable for breathing claustrophobic and disillusioned noir, a rare achievement in Flemish film.Sadly "Loft" didn't grip and involve me as much as it should have. In a certain sense it was too well done - too cerebral, too clever, too coldly abstract. It also struck me as over-convoluted, with too many people whose secrets had secrets, whose agendas had agendas and whose lies had lies. (In fairness it should be noted that I have watched the movie with other viewers, who were riveted to the point of sitting on the edge of their seats and failing to breathe.) Still, the movie was deadly accurate in pointing out that there exist "friendships" which are nothing else than egotism or rivalry turned inside-out.

simonve92 The film starts very strange with a raining scene and it's only at the end of the film that it is obvious what happened there. The soundtrack is very good chosen by the genre of the film. The music enforces the story. The flashbacks clarify the different personalities of the five men. In fact, the friends aren't really friends. What surprises me was, when their wives found out that their men cheated them, they all react in a different way. I thought that every woman would give the same reaction, namely furious . It was remarkable that some woman even forgive their men. I really enjoyed the film, it is the best Belgian movie I've ever seen. It was very stirring. The end was really unexpected and surprising. I recommend every grown-up who likes thrillers to watch LOFT.

MxRoland After the buzz flying 'round my ears for weeks and weeks already, I started to prepare myself for the worst-case-scenario; the nightmare come true: a mediocre by-the-numbers little thriller, about as unsatisfying as one of Stephen King's less inspired pulp scribblings. Luckily giant relief soon replaced my skeptic approach. Hollywood-style? Yes, but not an inferior copy. One of the first scenes bring to mind the opening sequence of 'Inside Man', a man dead on his feet grilled by two unrelenting policemen, he stammers a fogy story, a story that makes less and less sense with each new sentence uttered; the intrigues spreads through the audience, let the games begin!The gorgeous stylized look captured my attention immediately, cinematographically 'Loft' without a doubt means a new high for production values in Belgian cinema. The exploration of the murder-site with the camera's eye (not during the initial discovery of the dead body but a handful of minutes later) astonishes, impossible angles, a sensually swinging camera, death and sex captured in a few seconds of film. The cool, modern design of the loft, and just the fact that we're dealing with a loft here, symbolizes the decadence, of which every character's guilty of, beautifully, and the coldness buried in most of the characters. Predictability can rapidly transform a promising thriller with tons of A-scenes to a B-film beyond redemption (the anti-metamorphosis of the butterfly; from near-godly winged creature back to fat caterpillar). Predictabillity and plot randomness.- what I like to name 'the Perfect Stranger phenomenon (arrange for multiple plausible endings as a result of the vagueness of the plot, and then choose the one that test audiences prefer). 'Loft' is neither! The script is sly en never insults the audience's intelligence. You can see head writer De Pauw spent a lot of time perfecting a diamond in the rough into a three carat one. I personally prefer this more minimalistic (less locations, less movement in the scenes), more plot-driven film over Van Looy's previous. But naturally, this is anything but an insult for 'The Memory of a Killer'. Now let's get to the acting department. There's loads to admire on the silver screen, Filip Peeters gets the most substance to chew on, Bruno Vanden Broucke descends deep into his character, one that heavily contrasts with his usual type of character, only Koen De Bouw pales in comparison to his performance in 'The Memory of a Killer'. Again, this is not an insult, that performance easily ranks among the best of 2003. The part of Filip Willems (played Matthias Schoenaerts) interested me the least, but his presence is unavoidable (for the plot). Now, the small shortage of psychological depth is a minor blemish, certainly because the believability of the plot exists only by the strength of the believability of the characters' motivations. A few extra scenes possibly could be of use to solve this problem, but more than likely would mean a loss of some tension.My heart rate went up, adrenaline pumping, and those icy looks of Bruno Vanden Broucke will not soon fade from memory...

Panterken The movie takes a while to pick up steam but soon enough the director takes us on exactly the kind of roller-coaster ride we want out of a whodunit thriller. The story's very sly and just when you think you've figured it all out, it slips away from you, it's like trying to hold on to a wet bar of soap. Van Looy's greatest accomplishment is avoiding the sin most of the movies in this genre make: neglect the characters. Without losing pace, we manage to really get to know the pawns in our chess game, and as each one's motivations start to sink in, even the most unlikely become suspect.We see here assembled a who's who of Belgian stars, the dream team cast, even the smaller roles are given to top class actors (Jan Decleir). The film's lighter on it's feet than Van Looy's previous, we (on first sight) get to deal with far less tortured souls, which makes some room for humorous intervals, I fear a lot of these will get lost in translation.As in all stories, but even more so in plot-driven thrillers, the end's the most important part. It delights me that they didn't choose a ridiculous, nonsensical ending as so much postmodern thrillers shamelessly do these days. I can't give anything away of course, but I for one didn't see it coming at all and yet it adds up when you replay previous scenes in your head.Go see it, it merits national and international attention.