Sportman van de Eeuw (2006) Reviews

• Cool sport, poor romance

  joostd2006-04-05

  Sportsman of the century is a romantic drama about Teake Jongsma, a member of the Northern Dutch province Friesland (Fryslân). The guy is quite good in his department of sports: sitting at a pole. Teake rules this sport for about 60 years and is therefore selected to become sportsman of the century (of Fryslân, that is). The bad thing in his sports is the fact that matches can take up to 250 days. This messes up Teake's personal life, because he (poor) is fighting for one girl with another man (a rich guy named Rintje). I think the brand of sport chosen for this picture is quite original. Juchum ten Haaf is a charming sportsman, sitting high on his pole. These scenes are the cool ones in the movie. The rest (the romantic drama) is quite poor. The story is flat and contains holes, the actions of Rintje are very predictable. It's a pity, because sitting on a pole is very cool in this picture.

• Sitting on the top of the world.

  jgeerling2006-04-08

  When you think of sports, sitting on the top of a pole doesn't really come to mind. Nevertheless, this is the sport we see in this movie. The Frysian Taeke is the best at what he does, and his dream is to set a record, and to marry his dream girl. The problem is that to get the record, he has to be for more than 250 days straight on that pole. Meanwhile his girl marries someone else. Taeke gets depressive, and quits after 249 days. No Girl, no record. The movie follows Taeke during his live, and it explains why someone with such a weird and eccentric sport deserves to be called Sportsman of the century. The strong point of the movie is not the romance, but Taeke's true love for the sport, and the Frysian country life. This is told with real passion, and the actors are pretty good. The humour and drama are balanced. One of the Dutch movies you gotta see. The main goal of the movie, explaining why Taeke is a true sportsman, is reached.

• Far-fetched

  DudaSaurus2006-04-09

  Although interesting in concept and shot beautifully, exactly why everybody goes nuts for a ten-year old winning a butt-numb-a-thon is a complete mystery to me. As this is crucial to the development of the story, everything that happens after that feels too far-fetched to get the reaction the filmmakers obviously had in mind. Constructed in a flash-back story mode, the movie kicks off with the message that the main character has spent sixty years of his life devoted to the well-being of his fellow man. What follows is the story of a man who ignores the pleas for help of his father and wife to be, and as his motivations for spending week after week sitting on a pole are never quite explained properly, you loose interest in the main character rather than getting close to him. Good cast, nice acting, but all in all too unbelievable to keep focused on for almost two hours.