Siberia

Summer in Amsterdam. Oddly matched buddies Hugo and Goof seduce female travellers and steal their possessions. Hugo (Metsers) is confident, cunning and romantically bitter, while Goof (Fernhout) is slow, sweet and apparently innocent. Despite their differences, these larky lads agree that their takings should be pooled. That is until they cross paths with Lara (Simac), an inscrutable, unscrupulous Russian. Goof falls for her, Hugo certainly doesn't, and suddenly the games turn personal. Dicing together motley film stocks and video with an agitated camera style, bursts of techno, and a narrative of fits and starts, needless to say Westdijk's second feature is all too mixed up. The aim is surely to reflect the vibrant urban cosmopolitanism already conveyed by the racial and linguistic mix, but the result is intrusive and hackneyed. The deeper problem, beneath the overbearing style, is the woolly characterisation, making it hard to feel the problems of these three add up to a tin of beans.