Amazing and wildly entertaining!

Rating: 10/10 (25 May 2008)

ZWARTBOEK (Black Blook) is an amazingly well written, well paced and well directed world war II action/drama directed by one of my all time favorite directors: Paul Verhoeven. I'm a huge ROBOCOP/STARSHIP TROOPERS/TOTAL RECALL, etc... fan. I even found SHOWGIRLS to be not that bad at all. Anyway, Verhoeven did this film in his native Holland and I was actually expecting a kind of indie-styled war drama, you know: good but low budget. How wrong was I? Had this movie been done in Hollywood it would have amassed several academy award nominations. It's a slick looking picture with all the technical savvy of a Hollywood picture. Paul Verhoeven has put all his Hollywood knowledge into great use to make ZWARTBOEK an engrossing picture.
The movie deals primarily with the story of Rachel Stein, a beautiful Jewish girl living in German occupied Holland. While trying to get away from Holland, her family is mercilessly executed by the SS, after a fellow countryman had told her it was safe to cross into Belgium at night through the river. She manages to escape and joins a resistance group in Holland, where she is given the task to infiltrate the SS and pass herself as a German cabaret singer. In the process, she falls for Gestapo officer Müntze. At first, Müntze suspects she's a spy and after he finally finds out who she is, he also falls madly in love with her. The movie then turns into a series of conspiracies and double crossing friends. The action never lets up, and there's hardly a boring moment in the entire film (it is way over 2 hours, but they fly by at high speed!). As with other Verhoeven films, there's plenty of sex and violence to please old time fans, but there's also a solid story and great acting by dutch actress Carice Van Houten. She is really hot in this movie and her acting is what makes this picture so entertaining and believable. If she ever decides to go Hollywood, she's gonna blow some young actresses away in a Milli second! Sebastian Koch as Müntze and Thomas Hoffman as the resistance doctor are also superb.
Some people have argued that this is probably Paul Verhoeven's crowning achievement and they maybe right: the movie has everything going for it. It really took me by surprise since I was expecting something not THIS good. Make no mistake: ZWARTBOEK is a roller-coaster ride of a movie and it won't disappoint you!