I so wanted to enjoy this.

I loved Koen De Bouw in Professor T and after being a bit let down with him only being a support actor in Red Light, I found this which was from the same era as P. T. with him looking rather similar.

Eventually, I found a version with English subtitles which was a help (perhaps they were hard to find as some of it was in English anyway).

Seeing a few guest stars from P. T. was a boost but the film itself was a let down and a beyond credibility but at least, unlike many films and TV shows here in the UK, it wasn't plastered with political correctness (so tired at mandatory same-sex relationships and a higher than average number of ethnic minorities in shows these days).

The music brought some suspense but unfortunately it didn't reflect the poor scenes on screen. So disappointed. Off to watch The Team now. Koen has a small role but hope his character has gravitas.

First the bad : the idea behind the movie is pretty implausible. Sadly, this lack of credibility permeates all aspects of the movie - intrigue, script, everything and anything. The people on the screen may be acting up to and above the call of duty, the viewer sits there and thinks : watch out for the sequel, when the dog of the Belgian prime minister will marry the Pope.

There are also a number of clichés, such as the moment where the Bad Guy addresses his victim in order to explain his motivation slowly and clearly. Sadly, the motivation consists of pseudo-geopolitical claptrap worthy of a lesser Bond movie. (You know the drill : "If I can get Monaco to drop an atom bomb on Paris, then Iceland will have no choice but to attack Greece. Meanwhile, the famished hordes of China will acclaim me as their new emperor".) The claptrap was also pretty insulting to the USA and its foreign policy, although it should be noted that there exist segments of the said policy which are fully capable of insulting themselves.

The movie's ending is strangely sloppy and rushed, as if someone somewhere had heard the ringing of an only-five-minutes-before-the-end- of-the-competition alarm. One can imagine cooks rushing left and right through a kitchen, quickly throwing some food on a plate - and never mind the endive salad or the Parmesan dressing.

Still, the movie is not without its charms. The acting is pretty decent ; the locations are suitably sinister, grand or iconic ; no expense was spared on the production values ; and the images are particularly beautiful and crisp.

I found myself strangely fascinated by the end credits, which were as long as the Ganges and contained some of the most original names I have seen in a long time. I need to get out more often.

"The Prime Minister" is the type of fast-paced crime/thriller that delivers copious amounts of action and suspense, however, it simultaneously also requires an almost complete suspension of disbelief on behalf of the viewer. If, and only if, you manage to turn off your skepticism regarding the overall story and the near-ludicrous plot-twists, the film will provide fantastic and non-stop entertainment. In case you swear by realism, don't even bother to press the play-button.

Writer/director Erik Van Looy is, in Flanders at least, a well-respected and much-loved media figure. He's the host of the most popular quiz on prime-time TV, appears in the panel of several games and talk shows and the films he directed ("De Zaak Alzheimer", "Loft") rank among the biggest blockbusters in history. His American adventure to direct a remake of "Loft" perhaps didn't work out as successful as he might had hoped, but he certainly returned to Belgium with a typically "Hollywoodian" idea for a crowd-pleasing and intense thriller. Our national pride in acting, Koen De Bouw, stars as the Belgian Prime Minister. There goes the plausibility already, in fact, because this country never had such a charismatic and eloquent prime minister. On his way to a European-American summit in Brussels, he is kidnapped and learns that his family - wife and two children - are held hostage, and that they will be executed if the Prime Minister himself doesn't agree to murder the American President during their private meeting in the afternoon.

Great aspects include a handful of totally unexpected but seriously vile and brutal execution sequences, the clever references towards actual Belgian politicians and the sadistic role of Stijn Van Opstal as the driver. I previously only knew him as an adequate but inconspicuous supportive actor in local TV-series ("Tabula Rasa", "Met Man en Macht"),but he deeply impresses here as the downright evil and unscrupulous terrorist who enjoys torturing, humiliating and provoking the Prime Minister and his PR-assistant. Even with a fair portion of suspension of disbelief, there are still a couple of major defaults. Van Looy unnecessarily adds melodrama to the plot with a typically cliched twist regarding the Minister's private life. And, surely, the climax could have been slightly better? I appreciate that Van Looy didn't turn his protagonist into a bona fide action hero, like Harrison Ford in "Air Force One", but there must have been other options to avoid such an anti-climax?