Black Book (2007)

Not even bad in a good way

Excellent, smart action film.

disgusting, overrated, pointless

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Wow! Who could have imagined that one of the best war-time thrillers of the last fifty years would be made by the man who brought us the comic-book violence of TOTAL RECALL and STARSHIP TROOPERS? Yes, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven is the man behind this story of the Dutch resistance in WWII, and it's his best work since STARSHIP TROOPERS. It's also an atypical outing for the director more at home with blood and guts and OTT action and a throwback to his films of old like SOLDIER OF ORANGE. This is an old-fashioned thriller with a bit of everything thrown in for audiences – romance, action, suspense, thrills, drama, human emotion. It's a film detailing the human condition and at its heart it contains an absolutely fantastic performance from a virtually unknown Dutch actress, Carice van Houten, who looks like Naomi Watts but is about a million times better as an actress.The film details the constant struggle for power and supremacy between the Dutch resistance and the Nazis in the dying days of WWII. What I loved most about the plot was the constant twists and turns and surprises at every stage. I was trying to second-guess this film at some instances but it never worked, because I could never figure out what was going to happen next. Even the ending is a great surprise. There's a conspirator at work behind the scenes, a real traitor, but figuring out his or her identity is nigh on impossible. Great scriptwriting like this doesn't come along every day! The cast is uniformly excellent, particularly Sebastian Koch as the sympathetic Nazi officer. Attention to detail is spot on and you come away feeling that the research has been 100%. The film's budget is up on screen to see and all of the old cars and uniforms look amazing. Even the special effects don't disappoint. Verhoeven can't resist throwing in some of his trademark violence, here in the form of shoot-outs and the like, and even some fairly explicit sex and nudity a la BASIC INSTINCT. But in the end, BLACK BOOK transcends all of its parts to become a thoroughly engaging and excellent war epic.

Honestly, I did not expected the movie be so good.Thought it is just another military and spy story.Looking at the ratings, thought to give a try and glad that I came across this movie.The never ending unfortunate story of Jews is very well narrated.All actors act carried out their role very well.Carice van Houten is one of the finest actor around.Sebastian Koch is elegant as always.Movie keeps you glued to the seat.One of the movie to watch

Paul Verhoeven co-wrote and directed this tremendous undertaking, Black Book (Zwartboek), a Dutch film from 2006. This is a big, sprawling film about World War II and the travails of a Jewish woman, Rachel Stein.The film starts on a kibbutz in Israel, where Rachel (Carice van Houten) is living and teaching, when she runs into a tourist (Halina Reijn) who knew her during the war. Rachel thinks back to those days, when she was hiding with a Christian family until their house was bombed. She then meets someone from the Resistance who helps her get a boat into free territory. Tragedy strikes.Rachel begins to work with the Resistance who have her dye her hair and give her fake I.D. as Ellis deVries. While on a train, she meets a German officer, Muntze (Sebastian Koch). He seems interested in her, so the Resistance asks her to go undercover.A very suspenseful and scary film that makes the point that not only can't you trust everyone, but that not everyone was out to help the greater good - sometimes only themselves. And within the Nazi regime, there were real baddies and some not so bad. An interesting take.The film is carried by Carice van Houten, an absolutely beautiful woman who is one heck of an actress. I frankly preferred her with her natural dark hair; with her blond hair, she bore a resemblance to Annie Potts, which I found disconcerting. Nevertheless, she was pretty fantastic in a real workhorse role.The rest of the cast was very effective. Extremely absorbing film that, despite its length, will keep you watching.

This movie needs to be taken with huge grain of salt if you don't want to tear your hair out while watching it.I suppose it depends on what sort of expectations you have beforehand, but that can really always be used to defend a movie, as well as argue for differing viewer's experiences, much like the fact that many of us have varying tastes in movies. However, I think some things can be more or less objectively agreed upon by people who appreciate the art of film and cinema.The suspension of disbelief required for this movie to make any kind of lasting impression is MASSIVE. The script feels unfinished, almost as if the rough draft that outlined the films events was passed for a finished product. Where major plot development or emotional discharge is expected, the acting performances fall short and disappoint time and again.Where do I even begin to exemplify this? I felt like every three minutes something in this movie irritated me to the point that I almost gave up watching it. Was it the jolly and utterly unconvincingly acted coincidental reunion of a Jewish woman with her family after being separated by years of Nazi occupation? Or the lack of emotional burden expressed by her at the equally sudden death of said family moments later vis-a-vis the hysteric attack that ensues after she learns of the execution of her Nazi officer lover, Captain Muntze? Or maybe the blind trust placed by Dutch Resistance fighters in said Captain, who after sleeping with our undercover Jewish heroine turns out to be a very compassionate and helpful guy despite years of service to the Reich? Or possibly the ease with which a Canadian commander, having liberated a Dutch town, is persuaded to comply with a German military tribunal sentence by a NAZI GENERAL, and the crime was NOT carrying out retributions towards FAMILIES OF DUTCH RESISTANCE FIGHTERS? Yes, and there was more, much more.When the main lead, who by the way is infiltrating a Nazi HQ in order to get back at the enemy, reveals her affiliation with Dutch Resistance to an obviously promiscuous female co-worker of ambiguous loyalty and weak character, you know someone doesn't give two shits about contextual credibility. Even though the setting and premise of the film are interesting, it all becomes irrelevant through it's lack of depth or exploration of...anything. The films pace gives the impression that it was cut by a person with severe ADD who got bored with the scene they were working on between 5 and 10 minutes into it and just wanted to move on to the next one. I mean, when you can't even make a love scene reflect the sexual interest of at least one of the two people about engage in love-making, there really isn't much going for you by that point.This movie was a joke, a bad one too, and I don't see how this can be classified as one of Paul Verhoeven's so-called "satirical" works, thus somehow making it less terrible(?) Anyone who says that should stop talking, because you can't talk me into thinking you actually believe that poppycock. If you have any reverence for the time-period and the genre, you will probably feel the same way I do. If this movie was based on real events, as it states, then I hope it was based on them with a substantial amount of deviation from them.