Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) is a columnist for an online newspaper who on a daily basis is the subject of hateful abuse and death threats on social media. One day she has had enough and decides to track them down and murder them. 

The Columnist is a black comedy that focuses on possibly the most divisive issue of our time. Is freedom of speech free of consequence? And is it possible for people to have different opinions and be civil with each other? 

When Femke appears on a television show to ask this final question instead of the vitriol thrown at her online reducing, it spirals out of control. Resulting in her killing spree. The film does lose some moral ground in the questions posed but it does create some black comedy with her amateurish murdering antics. 

There are two main sub plots to the main plot that are used to accentuate the main theme. Firstly, Femke’s daughter Anna (Claire Porro) is doing a school project on freedom of speech and the lack there of in certain countries. Secondly, Femke’s new boyfriend Steven Dood (or Death in English) played by Bram van der Kelen is a fiction writer famous for his gory and violent books, but who is a completely well adjusted and polite guy. 

Ultimately the film is perfectly enjoyable but does not really excel anywhere. The social commentary is interesting but not fully explored. The dark comedy aspects are smile inducing but not laugh out loud funny. Whilst the ending is ambiguously interesting but not necessarily something that will stick in the mind. Fun but forgettable.