Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Jeroen Spitzenberger, Anniek Pheifer, Roosmarijn van der Hoek, Liz Vergeer, Willem de Wolf, Truss te Selle, Hubert Fermin, Tim Linde, Peter Blankenstein.
It comes as no surprise that the world is far angrier place than it has been for decades. However, it is not necessarily all down to the governments of the world refusing to put their houses in order and sue for peace at all costs; we, as individuals, must also bear the brunt of responsibility, for our actions have become dominated by the outraged and the uncompromising activists seeking to further their personal agenda, it is the damnation of the wrathful with no cause to justify happiness for others and the bully and the impatient who inspires rage in others that should seek forgiveness for making the world a less than tolerant and easy place to live.
Acting upon anger when you believe you have been slighted, when you insist that your fury is justified because of an argument that could have been avoided with good manners on either side, is the road to revenge, it is the highway to madness and insanity; and which at some point leads only to ruin and death.
It used to be said that the person who seeks revenge should be ready to dig two graves, now in age where revenge is but a side show to the act of murder, it is not a person who fills the hole in the ground, but society itself, the respectable nature to which all surely aspire, and which is on the verge of being unfashionable, on the verge of being killed violently.
Violence against the person and society at large is one of the themes that underpins the excellent, and volatile, Dutch film Tailgate.
The act of road rage itself might be thought of as a contradiction in The Netherlands, a country to where the act of laid-back acceptance is part of the national psyche in the eyes of other countries, and yet Tailgate, which stars Jeroen Spitzenberger, Anniek Pheifer and Willem de Wolf in absolutely delicious and dynamic roles, is a film of psychosis, of perceived rage being a force for good and the damage that is created by revenge.
Willem de Wolf gives a masterclass in the way his character is shown to be the calm face of madness, of how he feels the inner rage of being treated badly on the motorway and the resentment that comes across in his reprisal. To play the antagonist in such a way is perhaps to play to the gallery in what can only be described as human horror, but to witness the role being performed with frightening gravitas is to understand the depth of provocation we all feel when pushed to the edge of society’s abyss.
Tailgate is a film of complicated allegiances set up perfectly by the writer and director, one that asks the audience to choose one side or the other, knowing that both are ones seeped in anger and despicable actions. Brutal and oddly satisfying, Tailgate is a film that knows that it has set out to hit the conscious bumper of all who get too close.
Ian D. Hall