Bassi & Driaan en de verborgen schatkaart (2005) (V) Directed by Elwin Rijken

(Review originally written at 25 December 2006)

This short movie is my idea of a fun great nonsense movie. There is zero story, everything that happens doesn't really make much sense, the characters are simple and dumb in an hilarious way. In other words; perfect to kill some time with and have a great time as well while doing so.

This is a typical movie that is popular in certain circles among youngsters who surf the Internet. It's a movie that is well known, not through marketing but due to good old fashioned mouth to mouth spreading. The production company Baaaah Productions, or B-Pro for short, made a whole lot of more silly movies, takes mixes material arts elements and silly humor that spoofs some well known (silly) television-series. The company is founded by a couple of enthusiastic youngsters, who make the movies just for fun of it and also use it as an exhaust to show their material arts skills in a good looking and professional way.

In this particular case the movie spoofs the well known and popular Dutch series of "Bassie & Adriaan", that is made for children and is very popular and well known in the Netherlands and Belgium for over 30 years now. It's about the brothers Bassie and Adriaan, two brothers who work at the circus. One is an acrobat the other a clown. They live together in a caravan with a small robot named Robin. Together they always undertake some big adventure, all over the world, while they are often being chased by their nemesis the Baron and his henchmen, wannabe-spy B100, bomb maker Handige Harry and Vlugge Japie. This movie only spoofs a small section of the Bassie & Adriaan franchise. It relies on the fact that everybody who watches this movie knows who all the characters are and what the significance of the sets, costumes and dialog are. So don't even think about watching this movie if you have never heard- or seen Bassie & Adriaan before. The movie won't be much fun, although you'll surely still enjoy and be entertained by it probably, due to it's material arts elements and silly comical situations.

This movie definitely ain't no kids movie. It features lots of violence and Bassi & Driaan say some things you want be ever hearing the real Bassie & Adriaan say. The movie has Bassi & Driaan undertaking some serious fighting action, when they are being attacked by the Baron and his small army of ninja's.

The fight sequences look good and are well choreographed. This ain't no beginners and all of the actors are well trained professionals. This definitely shows on the screen, with as a direct result some great and spectacular looking moves and action.

The movie, as its story itself, is incredibly simple. It doesn't try to make sense and it offers some good straight-forward nonsense, that often gets extremely hilarious. The humor is incredibly simple but hilariously executed. Some of the sequences don't even feel connected. I mean, what is Robin from Batman doing in this? Ha-ha! But nevertheless the camera handling and editing is surprisingly good, which does make the story flow well, in a good quick pace. Sure, not everything works out as fun or effective as intended though unfortunately. But at least the guys did have fun making this movie and that really shows well in the movie its end eventual result.

The movie is definitely less amateur like, also because of its 'styleless' humor, than you at first sight would expect it to be.

Besides material artist, the actors also are some good comical actors as well. They play their characters deliciously over-the-top. Raphael Klompers and Rudi van der Steen do a good job portraying the two main characters, although I have the feeling that if Johan Aders had played the role of Driaan, as intended to, the movie would had been even more fun to watch. Renko Koppe is also entertaining as the Baron, who's eye-patch (unintentialy) keeps falling of in basically every sequence he is in.

The movie uses many fun comedy sound effects, some more subtle than others. For the voice of the Baron real archive material of the real Baron, played by Paul van Gorcum, from the Bassie & Adriaan series is used. This was a great move, since it worked out extremely hilarious in the movie. The movie also has a great and fun variation of the famous "Bassie & Adriaan" music-theme.

A must-see, if you've grown up with watching the "Bassie & Adriaan" television-series.

9/10