Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Marc Warren, Maimie McCoy, Luke Allen-Gale, Elliot Barnes-Worrell, Darrell D’Silva, Emma Fielding, Thomas Acda, Shereen Cutkelvin, Hadewych van Gent, Kay Greidanus, Sallie Harmsen, Loes Haverkort, Peter van Heeringen, Daniël Kolf, Mike Libanon, Lidewij Mahler, Michiel Nooter, Mark Rietman, Adrian Schiller, Jenny Spark, Eva Maria de Waal.
The scourge of civilisation is how we look at sex, not the consenting act between two adults who care deeply for the feelings of the other, not the awkward fumble of two teenagers who don’t know anything but the beat of their hormones, but the kind which is dominated by power, by misuse, by abuse, by money, and by fear…that is the disgrace of all who practise such gross perversions, and it is the shame of civility that we have not put those who practise it to the sword.
It takes a hard-hitting drama, one that is unafraid to delve into the murky and nightmarish world in which people from all walks of life, but always seemingly from a position of authority and ply their ill-gotten fantasies in which to wreck lives, to highlight the trade that resembles lifting a stone and seeing the dark creatures underneath exposed to sunlight scuttle in terror.
It comes as no surprise that the second series of Van der Valk should finish in such a manner, and in Payback in Amsterdam the effect of such shame and degradation is wide-spread and evil, and it takes a gritty and resolute detective series to truly get under the skin of the trade, of the damaging act, and it takes an actor of absolute quality to play both the defender of the abused, and the one who is the spider in the web conducting all who find themselves ensnared.
Such an act falls to the ever-impressive Marc Warren as Piet Van der Valk and Jenny Spark as club owner Anouk Prinsens, and as the case opens with a concert cellist being attacked with acid, so the turn of events becomes one of national and International reckoning, and in Jeany Spark, to whom viewers will remember with fondness as Kurt’s daughter Linda in Kenneth Branagh’s version of Wallander, the spider in the middle of it all is seen through her eyes, full of love for another, but wanting to do the right thing and release the captured prey back into the open.
It takes guts and courage to show such an episode, but it is one that is required to understand just how open abuse can be, and what it does to those who are scarred by the experience, both in terms of the women and children caught in its net, but also those who are investigating the crime, the psychological effect it has on the two groups of people is not one to gloss over with a quick finish and fade to grey scenario as the camera stops recording.
Written by Chris Murray and Maria Ward, Payback in Amsterdam is a hard watch, but it is one that needs to be seen, for if nothing else, it serves its purpose to keep an observant eye on those to whom we think are above the law and how the world can gain its vengeance.
Ian D. Hall