Zwartboek

Paul Verhoeven has a new movie. Apparently, after realizing the utter shame involved in taking on a project like "Hollow Man," Mr. Verhoeven got his shit together, fucked off back to the Netherlands, and decided to make a movie in Dutch for the first time in twenty years. So, I'll be honest, Robocop it isn't, but, as Robocop is pure cinematic brilliance, it would be quite difficult to even come close.

The truth is that Black Book is a really, really good movie. Even by normal, non-Verhoeven standards. I mean, it's good in an actual, honest, non tongue-in-cheek kind of way. The acting is superb, the characters are really beautifully fleshed out, everybody betrays everybody and the plot and action are fantastic. Verhoeven even pulls off writing a sympathetic nazi character. No, seriously. Not only does he write a sympathetic nazi character (the head of the SS in Holland, no less) but he even pulls it off without looking like a total nazi sympathizer. That, my friends, is no easy feat.

Unfortunately, the places where the movie is weak, where it fails to live up to the Robocop standard, are in precisely the places where Verhoeven is Verhoeven. He is, for a change, giving us a serious, intelligent, complex action-drama, and in this atmosphere, the cheesy music swells, gratuitous nastiness (I'm thinking of a particular scene near the end of the movie . . . I won't give it away, let's just say it smells bad), and absurdly heavy-handed sound effects stick out like sore thumbs. These elements all meld seamlessly into farce and parody, but this film is too honest for Verhoeven's usual tricks. It is at its best when he takes his hands off and lets the actors and the script move along unimpeded. I know, without a little gratuitous sex and violence, it wouldn't be a Verhoeven film, and a fair amount of the gratuitous sex and violence in Black Book actually works quite well. There are a few points, unfortunately, where he goes a bit too far. Oh, I never, NEVER thought I'd say Verhoeven has gone too far. What a strange world we live in!

Also, the bookends are completely unnecessary, distracting, and obtrusive. He could have achieved the same effect with a rolling title card at the end saying what happened to Ellis/Rachel.

Despite all my bitching, it's a really good movie. It's intense, the story is great and twists in directions you never see coming, everybody is a villain, from the nazis to the resistance fighters to the liberators to the jews, and yet, most of the villains are, in one way or another, sympathetic. The acting is superb, the movie made me cry, bawl even, and apart from a handful of heavy-handed moments that keep it from being great, it is still really, really good. Highly recommended for anyone who likes action, who likes historical drama, who likes Verhoeven flicks.

And yes, I've seriously started deluding myself into thinking I'm a film critic. Obviously.