Moord in extase (1984) Directed by Hans Scheepmaker

This movie was actually a rather surprising one. I had never heard about it before but it actually is a pretty good one, within its genre and it made me wonder why they didn't made more movies, involving the main characters.

It's a pretty standard police crime/mystery/thriller, in which the cops have to solve an armed robbery, plus a whole bunch of murders that occurred following after the incident. It follows the usual pattern of lets say an English crime television-series but by saying this I'm not referring to that as being a bad thing. Not at all really. No, it's nothing too special or surprising but it most definitely serves its purpose.

The movie foremost works because it has a pretty solid story. It on top of that features some nice dialog and some likable and well written characters. It all makes me wonder why there weren't more movies involving de Cock and Vledder being made, following this movie. All the potential of making a long running movie-series out of it were there really but I guess the movie wasn't that much of a financial success back in its days, which also would explain why this movie is rather unknown and hard to get by.

It wasn't until years later that the source material got rediscovered again and turned into a popular and long running television-series. So finally eventually justice still got done to the source material and characters all written by Appie Baantjer but it could had done way earlier really, with a whole bunch of more de Cock and Vledder movies, starring Joop Doderer and Ron Brandsteder. I keep saying that since I really see this as a big missed opportunity.

It's still fun to see some of the similarities between this movie and the later television-series, though the TV-series wasn't based on- and had nothing to do with this movie at all. It all is of course because it's based on the same source material and characters written by Appie Baantjer, who quite often based his stories and characters off on real life situations, when he was still an active cop in Amsterdam. Of course the characters in this movie and television-series are quite similar but so is also its buildup and its relieving comedy.

Big difference is that this movie is far more action filled. You don't ever get to see a gun fight in the later television-series and a whole bunch of other stuff that is happening in this movie. I was actually surprised at how much action and stunt-work was in this.

A real good genre movie, by the numbers, that should had been the first of a long running series of Vledder and de Cock movies really.

7/10