Kicks (2007)

Run Time - 111 min.  |   Countries - Netherlands  |  
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Synopsis by Jason Buchanan

The fatal shooting of a Moroccan youth by a racist police officer finds simmering tensions between ethic Dutch and a rapidly expanding Moroccan-heritage minority bubbling over into a boil in director Albert ter Heerdt's more serious-minded follow up to 2004's Shouf shouf habibi!. When veteran policeman Frank (Marcel Musters) and his Moroccan-Dutch partner Aaliyah (Maryham Hassouni) receive word of a potential break-in at a local youth center, they arrive on the scene to find two teenagers crouched behind a dumpster. When one of the teens panics and leaps out from behind the dumpster brandishing what appears to be a handgun, racist cop Frank immediately opens fire. Now Moroccan teen Redouan (Iliass Ojja) is dead, but his friend Karim (Ilias Addab) somehow managed to escape without injury. As the community goes into an uproar over the senseless killing, Aaliyah struggles to discern whether her partner's blatant racism played into his split-second decision to use deadly force in the heat of the moment. Out in the streets, Karim and the authority-weary locals openly advocate violent protest while others such as Redouan's level headed older brother Said (Mimoun Oaissa), the owner of a popular youth boxing gym, urges everyone to wait and see what becomes of the case. Later, when Said is accused of being a traitor to his own people, he begins to grow uncomfortable in his relationship with his white girlfriend (Chantel Janzen). Meanwhile, Aaliyah's fiancée Marouan (Mohammed Chaara) is derided by his future father-in-law for opting to join the Dutch Army, and local filmmaker Woulter (Roeland Fernhout) ventures out into the streets with girlfriend Kim (Hadewych Minis) to conduct research for an upcoming movie about the immigrant experience in Denmark.