Cinema for Brunch THE DUTCHMAN Review

An uneven, metatextual reimagining of a classic play, Andre Gaines’ ambitious thriller “The Dutchman” boasts great performances, haunted by a meandering pace.

Synopsis

Haunted by his crumbling marriage and an identity crisis, a successful but troubled businessman gets drawn into a psychological game of cat and mouse with a sinister, mysterious woman whom he encounters on a New York subway.

Review
Recontextualizing a classic 1960’s play about race, black consciousness and the lingering effects of slavery within the present time of the 2020’s is no easy feat. A filmmaker that takes on such a task could run the risk of pandering, having a lack of nuance and/or depicting scenes that are relentlessly preachy. Director Andre Gaines puts himself up to the challenge with his film “The Dutchman”, a modern reimagining of Amiri Baraka’s 1964 play of the same name (which also spawned a great 56-minute 1967 adaptation starring Al Freeman, Jr and Shirley Knight). “Dutchman” follows a black man named Clay (André Holland) who meets a white woman – the seductive, abrasive Lula (Kate Mara) – aboard a subway and an unsettling, trippy odyssey of consciousness, purpose and destiny soon follows. The most interesting distinction between this 2026 reimagining and the original 1964 play/1967 film is that the initial work keep the action on the subway itself whereas director Gaines and co-writer Qasim Basir take things beyond the subway into New York City. As Clay stalks through NYC, fighting to keep his sanity and evade the sinister Lula, the cloud of dual black consciousness as well as the promise of self-awareness hangs in the balance. If the plot seems too metaphorical for the big screen, it mostly is; where taking the action beyond the subway itself (the subway and the work’s title being a metaphor for Dutch ships that carried slaves across the Atlantic) seems intriguing on paper, it works more against this reimagining than in benefit to it.

The key player in this story – Clay – is given more to work with in this reimagining than in the original work. He has a fractured relationship with his wife Kaya (Zazie Beetz) with whom he is trying to reconcile following her previous infidelity, he has his loyal political friend Warren (Aldis Hodge) who tries to convince him to move on from his wife and there’s multiple surreal occurrences where he constantly runs into his marriage counselor/therapist Dr. Amiri (Stephen McKinley Henderson) in different disguises. When Dr. Amiri hands Clay a copy of The Dutchman play (yeah, this film gets meta quite a bit), Clay’s whole world goes upside down when, on the way to meeting his wife at Warren’s campaigning event party, he soon encounters Lula aboard a subway. The pairing of Holland and Mara is awkward to say the least. In their scenes together, Mara no doubt dominates and steals the show as the lascivious Lula. In every scene, she carries an abrasive, provoking presence that makes everyone around her disgusted and uncomfortable. Holland’s performance is more restrained and apprehensive and while this may work well on paper, in terms of forbidden fruit-like chemistry that should occur between the two (lacking in comparison to Al Freeman Jr and Shirley Knight in the original), the pairing is mostly unconvincing. Holland does stronger character work when Clay is left alone to his haunting thoughts: his wife’s infidelity, the words of Baraka’s play, his therapist’s words pervading his mind (“you’re trapped between who you are and who you must be”). Holland delivers excellent work towards the film’s finale where he unloads in a brilliant monologue about his frustration with racism, dual black consciousness and the like (this scene being a brilliant homage to Al Freeman Jr’s impassioned rant at the end of the original short film).

The metatextual ambition of “The Dutchman” doesn’t work nearly as much without the audience having knowledge of its source material. What cripples the film in addition to taking the plot beyond the subway itself and adding unnecessary characters and locations is its confidence of the audience “catching up” with its self-reflexive nature. While its theme of “breaking generational curses” is poignant with the current landscape of Black culture, its meandering plot holds the material back instead of rightfully elevating it. Where the original soars in keeping the plot focused and centered in one location, this adaptation loses focus and throws extra elements in the pot, hoping a more robust brew breaks through.

Closing Thoughts
“The Dutchman” is an ambitious swing for director Andre Gaines, serving as an interesting follow-up to his critically-acclaimed 2021 documentary “The One and Only Dick Gregory”. “The Dutchman” does manage to carry a great deal of tension throughout but alas, it doesn’t stop the film from keeping things too sluggish and meandering. While their chemistry is not as strong as it should be, André Holland and Kate Mara carry great performances and provide a fresh take on the two characters. Even if the film doesn’t come off too pandering or preachy, a tighter focus on dialogue, plot and location could elevate this film to a stronger, thought-provoking experience more akin to its source material.

Trailer