Probably the first Flemish gangster flick set in the world of the bovine-hormone mafia, Michaël R Roskam’s rural crime film is most notable for confirming Matthias Schoenaerts ( Rust And Bone ) as the actor you’d want for a Raging Bull remake.
Here he plays a bulked-up, testosterone-gobbling cattle farmer, who suffered an appalling childhood trauma and is now embroiled in a convoluted criminal plot that whips between multiple Benelux locations – with unscrupulous vegetarians and shady butchers shouting at each other in Limburgish.
Oscar-nommed last year, it chases the big themes – nature vs nurture, destiny vs free will – and displays plenty of visual imagination, but this overcooked film is in sore need of streamlining.
