RITUAL

Halfway through some twists and turns derail Ritual to such an extent that the movie goes off the boil spectacularly fast.

For its first 60 minutes Ritual is a perfectly fine, if rather predictable thriller that has enough going on to keep you decently entertained: a corpse with its hands chopped off, a young woman coping with the trauma of losing her parents in a diving accident, the timely theme of Belgium struggling to atone for its legacy in former colony Congo.

Actors Marie Vinck and Geert Van Rampelberg make the most of their thinly drawn characters while the production value and Hans Herbots' direction are certainly up to scratch for a Flemish film. And then, halfway through, the screenplay indulges in some twists and turns that derail Ritual to such an extent that it quickly becomes a mind-boggling annoyance.

Any sense of plausibility goes out of the window, character motivations become laughable and the film heaps numerous stereotypes upon the Congolese supporting actors, thus subverting the redemptive theme the picture introduced earlier.

It's been a while since I've seen a movie go off the boil this spectacularly fast.

release: 2022

director: Hans Herbots

starring: Marie Vinck, Geert Van Rampelberg, Eriq Ebouaney, Lukas Bulteel