Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Dirty Mind **1/2


Director: Pieter Van Hees
Cast: Wim Helsen, Robbie Cleiren
Kristine Van Pellicom, Peter Van den Begin, Maaike Neuville

In the most obvious exploitation style, Dirty Mind gets a cinematography treatment that turns every image into a grainy, almost kinky, voyage into the mind of Diego (Helsen); a shy, introverted stuntman who after an accident is transformed into the cocky, outgoing Tony T.
For his brother and colleague Cisse (Cleiren) this boosts business, as the new version of Diego has no regards for safety and will do anything to get the job.
For doctor Jaana (Van Pellicom) who's doing research, Diego becomes the perfect test subject to prove her theories about something called lateral syndrome.
Things get complicated when she realizes she might be falling for her patient and her scientific duty is to revert his condition.
Playing with notions of right, wrong and the power of science over emotions, the film mostly rides on a smooth, pleasant wave during which the director creates some priceless comedic sequences along with intriguing romantic turns.
Unfortunately soon enough we discover this is the same film we've seen a million times before under more traditional storytelling.
For all of Van Hees' postmodern use of title cards and Tarantino-esque homage, Dirty Mind remains rather innocent and for all its "we're more reliable than Mac and we crash better than Windows" quirk, the film can't hide the fact that it's all stunts and no action.

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