Black Book (DVD)

...about 'Zwartboek' (translates as the Black Book) from your normal award winning foreign movie, this Holland's entry for the 2006 BAFTAS and Oscars. It's Almost like watching a traditional Hollywood action drama but with subtitles, director Paul Verhoeven putting together the Netherlands most expensive movie ever at 16 million Euros here. It has the blockbuster feel for a European movie and maybe the emergence of a new style of film making we may ...
...aping the bold ambitions of what the confident South East Asian film industry is doing right now. What this isn't, is the traditional arty European movie of smoke rings, demure women and relationship skulduggery that usually dominates the award circuit. It's also not much of an award winning movie for me, perhaps its Jewish Holocaust themes that got it noticed or why it was put forward on the European film circuit. But this is no dumb action movie ...

thedevilinme 05.10.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Black Book (DVD)

Rachel Stein is a Jewish singer hiding in the Netherlands during the final year of World War Two. When she and her family try to cross the border to freedom, her party is betrayed and everyone but her is massacred. So she joins the Dutch resistance, where she is persuaded to infiltrate the German Security Service. To do so she must seduce a high-ranking officer called Müntze, with whom she falls in love. But further betrayals ensue, meaning that ...
...as well as the Nazis. She and Müntze go into hiding to try and survive the final days of the war. Dutch director Paul Verhoeven has always followed his own path, trying to make the erotic thriller popular in Hollywood and making "Starship Troopers", which wanted to be a warning against fascism but confused audiences with a cast of photogenic soap stars. Needless to say his Dutch-language output has been more consistent and far better received, as ...

afy9mab 18.09.2007 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Black Book (DVD)

I think this film is great it is also one of the best gripping war movies ever made. The film is magnificent. The film itselfs as fantastic actors which are the following carice van houten, sebastian koch, thom hoffman and halina reijn. Which the great director paul verhoeven choose so work in the ilm as they are stunning actors. The films itself is based on a beautiful jewish singer turns resistance spy when her family are executed by the nazis. ...
...the arms of the killers, where she must rely on her own looks, wits - and breathtaking courage - to survive. Best known for sexy, brash, toungue - in - cheek blockbusters like basic instinct and starship troopers, Verhoeven adopts a far straighter and darker tone here, True to form, mind, he also avoids the current trend for hyper - real mud and guts - in favourof slick, seductive storytelling. They don't make war movies like they used to - luckily ...

MasterReviews 11.05.2007 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of Black Book (DVD)