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BLACK BOOK Send This Review to a Friend
Said to be based on true events, Paul Verhoeven’s “Black Book” is a rousing, gripping World War II thriller that grabs you at the outset and maintains its grip through an onslaught of twists and turns right up until the end. Verhoeven (“Soldier of Orange,” “The Fourth Man,” “RoboCop,” “Basic Instinct”) succeeds in making the film an entertainment while touching bases that have particular meaning in Holland, where, as in other formerly occupied countries, there was a trail of heroes and traitors with post-war sorting out that undoubtedly has left still open wounds. But to only to take the film seriously would be to overlook its pull as a well-told, involving story with hair-raising intrigue and breathless escapades and escapes.
Among other things, “Black Book” is blessed with a dazzling performance by gorgeous Carice van Houten, who plays the Jewish Rachel, who, after seeing her parents betrayed and slaughtered, accepts an assignment to work in the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance. An ultimate assignment is to infiltrate by seducing a key Nazi officer, Ludwig Müntze, played by the charismatic Sebastian Koch, who is excellent here and is also superb as the writer in the Oscar-winning German film “The Lives of Others.” Some may balk at portraying him as a Nazi who gets fed up with the last-ditch polices as the war is being lost and also becomes attracted to Rachel, with the feeling mutual. But the acting is so effective that the possibility of a relationship becomes credible.
However, credibility is not a test in this saga of people who take amazing risks in impossible situations that mirror the outrageousness of exploits during wartime. Life can be stranger than fiction under such circumstances, and Verhoeven, making his first film in his homeland in 20 years, is a master story teller in filming the screenplay on which he collaborated with Gerard Soeteman, based on Soeteman’s original story.
The entire cast, whether playing heroes, turncoats or Nazis is excellent. One I also liked in particular is Halina Reijn, who plays Ronnie, a good-time gal of the type who’ll get along under whichever side is in power.
“Black Book” was a demanding shoot, packed with lots of action in varied places, and it is crisply edited to help provide a tense atmosphere and move at a sharp clip, with breathtaking sequences in which disaster coiuld occur any moment, especially during a rescue operation.
I don’t want to tell you so much that the edge-of-the-seat moments will be spoiled. Just be aware that for all the truth that may be entwined in the drama, Verhoeven has apparently aimed for a broad entertainment, and in that he has succeeded excitingly to make the effective kind of a sprawling wartime film, the likes of which has not be seen in some time, one for which it is easy to forgive gambits that you might judge far-fetched. And I can’t wait to see Van Houton on screen again. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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