Code 37 (2011) Reviews

• Watch the series first!

  Coventry2012-09-07

  Call me chauvinistic if you want, but I'm generally very proud of the fiction series that my country brings forward. Belgium particularly seems to specialize in crime/police series that are often extremely violent, but also benefit from quality scripts, terrific ensemble casts and suitable filming locations & decors. You have for example "Witse", "Zone Stad", "Aspe" and "Vermist". Each of them takes place in a famous big Belgian city (Antwerp, Bruges, Halle…) and has its own identifiable trademarks and gimmicks. "Code 37" is also such a successful series; set in Ghent and centering on a police unit that exclusively deals with sexual offenses. In order to launch the third and final season, the producers decided to surprise the audience with a long-feature motion picture released in theaters. The idea is definitely interesting, but also quite risky at the same time, since a film attracts new viewers that don't know anything about the characters' backgrounds and/or possible recurring themes from previous episodes. This is exactly what happens in "Code 37"… Throughout the first two – truly magnificent – seasons, the series loyally followed a specific pattern. Every episode revolved on one particular sex crime, but there was also the gradually unfolding mystery of lead protagonist Hannah Maes' private investigation and adolescent trauma. When she was a teenager, masked men invaded her home and brutally raped and killed her mother while she and her father were forced to watch. The crime was never solved and to this day Hannah is convinced that there's a convoluted conspiracy behind it. In the film, her investigation suddenly accelerates (to the point of nearly getting solved) but it must be completely incomprehensible for people that are new to the series. For example, I followed the series since the beginning – give or take a few episodes – but I watched the film with my girlfriend who never saw a "Code 37" episode before. I found myself providing her with additional feedback and background information on all the characters, so maybe it's not such a great idea to do a movie in the middle of a running show. Except of course if you don't want to attract viewers that weren't already familiar with it, but I can hardly imagine this is a successful marketing tactic. That being said, I want to emphasize that I still very much like the concept of "Code 37", even though the script here is significantly weaker than most of the episodes in the previous seasons. In general, this is a truly uncompromising and often shockingly raw series with plausible character drawings (the cops as well as the villains/victims) and plentiful of graphic action and sex sequences. One of the main reasons why the series comes across as realistic is because that the players talk in their own dialect and slang, which is often crude and vulgar. The violence and nudity featuring in each and every single episode is definitely not for people with a weak stomach and the amount of it is truly copious. If this series would air on American television, for example, I doubt that the any of the footage would survive the editing/cutting room. Like in all Belgian crime/police series, the cast is stupendous and solely exists of familiar and hugely reliable names (in the Flemish part of Belgium, that is, of course). Lead actress Veerle Baetens is excellent as Hannah Maes. She's one tough and seemingly invulnerable bitch on the outside, insecure and sensitive on the inside. It's pure class how Baetens portrays these opposite emotions. Her team exists of two macho males (Michael Pas and Marc Lauwrys) and one nerdish rookie (Gilles De Schrijvere). The chemistry between the four leads is excellent. If you are interested in the format, please start from the beginning and NOT with the movie. The chronological order is: season one, season two, movie, season three.

• it's a pity...

  mulder_dimi2011-11-07

  First of all, i'd like to say that i haven't seen Code 37, the series. I just hope it's a lot better than this movie i've just watched. it starts out with Veerle Baetens who gets awarded for her courage for being a law enforcer. Then you see a guy in a sex theater getting a little hand-action, then he gets clobbered down and assaulted. The team of Hannah Maes (Veerle Baetens) jumps on this crime to investigate it. After a long and very slow while you find out everything you already knew. Its all pretty predictable. Just a typical cop-movie from Belgium with some feminine influences. Excuse me, ladies, but this movie has a little bit too much of emotion aspect for being a thriller. At the end you find out something of Hannah's past (that has probably been a big question mark in the series, but not important for the moviegoer) and that's about it. Case closed with some... emotion aspect. I think this could've been a very good movie, but with the lame red thread of hannah's life throughout the movie, the cliché-story and bad acting (sorry, Michael Pas is normally a fine actor, but he can't hold up his role) it just turned into a TV-movie that is not worth more credit than my rating. I must say that Veerle Baetens really does a genuine effort to keep up with her role and she plays it great, but she has bad luck with the scenario. Fabulous actress, bad movie.

• Abysmal

  Mrswing2012-05-17

  Code 37 takes the surprising step of finishing the continuing plot line from the TV series (who raped Hannah Maes' mother and why) in a movie, rather than in a season finale. But in order to provide a 'normal' movie experience, the writers have bolted this onto a standalone case - which has NOTHING to do with the rape-mystery. So on the one hand we have Hannah (Veerle Baetens who overacts like crazy) and her three diminutive chums (Michael Pas, Marc Lauwrys and Gilles Deschrijvere) looking into the assault on a crazy writer who has had a sexual encounter with a young prostitute in a porn cinema. The assault is later followed by a murder and another violent attack, always on people who are associated with the prostitute (Maaike Neuville in a dreary and thankless role) and her 14-year old sister who's also started to go on the game. And Hannah meets an old flame who now runs a big bad nightclub in Ghent, and who happens to be the uncle of both girls. Never mind that Hannah as a vice cop would never have been put on the assault and battery case. Never mind that the cops are dumber than the audience by a mile (the 'mystery' is so predictable and shallow that you guess it by the half-way mark). Never mind that the solution to the continuing plot line is so uninteresting and unexciting that it's a mystery why this was reserved for a movie. What's so sad is that this is nothing more than a bad episode of a TV series, with a TV-series aesthetic (flashy but claustrophobic), there's no extra spectacle, not a second of true suspense or emotional attachment to any of the characters. It isn't even racier than the TV series (which goes pretty far for a mainstream show at times). Truly dreadful.

• I am the tinker of the movie

  nadirvanthielen2018-08-21

  In my early years I myself was studding whit laser scanner and get an scanner from a company from my fatter and he is an musician , when I was studding in my bunker (basement) the music playing the (notenkraker ) nutcrackers was playing behind me.bach and Beethoven... and me my noose in the Boeks from IBM and compac server and developing in code a to get the 38 and 39 and not 37 code working for a access and dollop the BASIC interpret silks to make programs. And the go running whit my luck something need to bi don about it

• Marvellous!

  johncastle-061012018-12-04

  Entertaining and sometimes risque. Excellent series that left me wanting more. What a pity it has not been continued.