This movie starts off lame and then becomes FANTASTIC! When it ends you'll be smiling, telling yourself how great it was, and lamenting that there is not more.
"Undercover." I wrote about it. I got a lot of feedback from people who said they watched it and loved it. Certainly the first season, with Anna Drijver as Kim.
But the star of the show is Frank Lammers as Ferry, a big time ecstasy dealer who is not greedy, but is not wary of using force to keep order. Most criminals in filmed entertainment are one dimensional. Or bad with a heart of gold. They're never people you know, who you could see growing up with, being friends with. Ferry breaks that mold. Ferry is VERY serious about business, but he loves to hang with his friends, watch football, drink, have a good time. I mean what sense does it make to be a criminal if you can't relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor?
And it all takes place in a trailer park. Not exclusively, but that's where the main action is. But Ferry has the best domicile, and they judge you based on how improved your trailer is. Cops Bob & Kim rent a trailer as part of their plan to entrap Ferry...but Ferry is streetwise, and hard to get on the record. So, they keep proffering more and more riches, unsuccessfully.
But Ferry has a much younger wife, played by Elise Schaap, Danielle. Who talks too much, alienating the rest of the residents, and is constantly complaining of aches and pains and relying on wackadoodle health treatments that Ferry doesn't believe in, but...
Danielle is completely different in "Ferry."
"Ferry" is the prequel to "Undercover." We find out where Ferry came from. Amsterdam. But he was originally from "Down South," which is said with a sneer, in the trailer park area. You see income inequality, upward mobility is not just an issue in the States. Danielle dreams of going to Amsterdam, meanwhile she's cleaning trailers and manning a carnival stand to make ends meet. Life is hard. In America you dream of becoming a rapper or an influencer, but the truth is few make it, and then you find out without an education your options are limited, you end up working with your hands for very low wages, trying to eke out a living. The only difference is on this side of the pond we have the American Dream, we believe we can move up the economic ladder, whereas in Europe and the U.K., the class system is much more rigid, you're born to your station and you end up there. Sure, people move up, but it's not embedded in the national mind-set.
So Ferry has a job to do, and in the process of tracking down offenders...
He goes to the trailer of his sister. They don't get along. They haven't spoken in years. Ferry won't apologize. And it's not until deep into the movie that you find out what the problem is...it's always family squabbles, they mean something to those related by blood, the rest of us just shrug.
But then Ferry moves on with the hunt and he encounters Danielle. She's cleaning a trailer.
Now Danielle is wearing a very visible thong. And when she bends over...
And Danielle has an hourglass body, she has hips unlike the mannequin models. And when she starts to dance, slinking to the music on the radio...FERRY CAN'T RESIST IT!
This is an easy concept to grasp, but a hard concept to depict accurately. What gets someone's loins burning...
So, Ferry and Danielle start doing the dance, but she's not the depressed person of "Undercover," she hasn't lost her optimism, she smiles and she and Ferry connect and...
IT'S LOVE!
Oh, we see this every day in movies and on TV, but it rarely resonates. Here you can literally see the magic grow between the two. And then... When they wake up together and it's new and Danielle starts talking about her breath and... There are so many hurdles to intimacy. You see someone from afar and have a crush. Rarely does anything happen. Most of the time you're off the gridiron, just waiting to hit the playing field. And hip-hop records tell you the guys are irresistible and the women are sassy, and the pop records are fairy tales, but in truth, love begins in fits and starts. And it doesn't always bloom. But the key element is when you realize...you're both interested. Are you? When it stops becoming a pursuit and is more about being together.
And when you wake up in bed the next day... You've swapped spit, and more, but you don't really know this person, but if it's a real relationship, you let down your guard, you lower the boundaries and you reveal your truth. Your anxieties, your desires, you reference what happened between the two of you...
And then there's one moment when Ferry leaves Danielle's trailer and she asks...ARE WE OKAY?
God, you know it, they're leaving and it's not completely lovey-dovey and you're wondering, did what happen mean anything, will you ever see them again? Danielle is asking for reassurance, so she doesn't torture herself in the ensuing hours/days.
And later in the show, when Ferry is inscrutable, inaccessible, Danielle says "I thought we clicked." Whew! The honesty. She's saying how she feels, she's putting it all out there, willing to be hurt, just to get to the truth.
You see human connection is powerful. We're all just animals, even if we're potty-trained and can think and speak.
I'm not giving much away, because the truth is you know Ferry ends up with Danielle. Only in "Undercover," he says he was married when he met her and there's no hint of a previous wife here. But everything else lines up, the characters and the action, but we always wondered...how did Ferry get from there to here? We didn't even know where "there" was!
To tell you the truth, "Ferry" made me mad. Because it ended. As I was watching I realized if this was a series instead of a movie, there'd be so much more detail, the story would be so much richer. Here, a glance suffices to move the action forward. But in a series, you're privy to the inner thoughts, the motivation.
I'm always wary of these tack-on productions. They're rarely up to the quality of the original. Kinda like the "Breaking Bad" movie... Okay, they wrapped it up, but it wasn't visceral like the series. But "Ferry"? It takes a while to get going, but then you can see the arc, you can see Ferry developing his strategy and executing it.
And ultimately you find out his life story, well, at least more than you knew, but what makes it so great is the love story between Ferry and Danielle. Danielle is cute, but in "Undercover" she's often not attractive. She's not drop-dead gorgeous, and her attitude at times is not endearing. But here, she's shined up, she smiles, she's up for it, she's wary of engagement but then she's all-in. And when Ferry is all-in too... This is what we live for, this is the development of a relationship, the essence, and I can't remember the last time it was depicted so well.
So, if you're interested, watch "Undercover" first, both seasons, so the prequel makes sense.
If you've already watched "Undercover," watch "Ferry" IMMEDIATELY!
Of course I've now overhyped you, then again I was disappointed at first. It was a bit too paint-by-numbers. But then the movie evolves and by time you hit the end, you're thrilled, that someone has gotten it so right, satiated you, like I said, you only want more.
"Ferry" made me swear off movies. Literally, I told Felice that. They're too disappointing. They're too short, not fleshed-out enough. I could have watched ten episodes bringing me up to speed on Ferry. My only hope is there will be more, a third season.
We live in a b.s. world where we ultimately feel powerless. But when you watch "Undercover" and "Ferry" you focus on little lives, you go down the rabbit hole and you realize we all live little lives, "Ferry" gives us a sense of perspective. I LOVED IT!
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