The Treatment

The Treatment (2014) is a Belgian police thriller and one of the hardest films in the genre. This is a warning up front. Inspector Nick Cafmeyer lost his brother when he was nine and the case was never solved. Years later a similar case arrives on his desk: a family is abducted, and what is done to the children becomes the centre of the investigation. It is adapted from a novel by the British writer Mo Hayder and it softens nothing. The scenes are not graphic, but what is implied is entirely clear, and that is sometimes heavier than showing it. Geert Van Rampelberg carries a closed, silent man convincingly. The image is cold and grey and the Belgian winter sets the tone. The procedural construction is solid and the turns are not contrived. It runs 131 minutes. Who should skip it: child abuse is the central subject and it runs from beginning to end. Anyone with any personal proximity to this should stay away entirely. Who it is for: viewers who follow Belgian and Nordic procedurals and can withstand thrillers that go into difficult material.