Admiral

Admiral (Michiel de Ruyter, 2015) is a Dutch-Belgian historical action drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Roel Reiné. It covers the career of Michiel de Ruyter, the son of a rope merchant who climbed to command the entire Dutch fleet during one of the most precarious stretches in the young republic's existence — simultaneously at war with England and France, and on the edge of tearing itself apart from within.

Barry Atsma plays de Ruyter not as a born aristocrat but as someone who earned every rank at sea. That popularity becomes the problem: the men running the country trust a competent commoner about as far as they can throw a frigate. Rutger Hauer appears as William of Orange; Charles Dance brings his trademark cold authority to the court's opposition. The naval battle sequences are produced at a scale that matches the best of European historical cinema from that period.

What lifts the film above a straightforward pageant is that Atsma's de Ruyter is plainly afraid — and goes anyway. Stream Admiral (2015) online on iFILM.