beautifully made, but some scenes are overdone

Rating: 7/10 (15 October 2006)

I am a Paul Verhoeven fan. I know he likes big effects sometimes. But in this movie the aim is in the first place realism. Carice and Halina played and were beautiful. I hesitated to give this movie an 8, but I disliked the scene with Theo Maessen, Marcel Musters and a crowd of carnivals people. (why suddenly throw a pile of well-known actors in one scene ?). The scene ( copied from the Brian DE Palma movie "Carrie" ) was totally unbelievable, misplaced and overdone. The misbehaving people were punished and discharged immediately by a Canadian officer that walked in exactly at the right moment. Is this for the American market ? All the bad people were punished. The last scene in the Kibboets was also unbelievable. As far as i know there never has been attacked a kibbutz.
Nevertheless I liked the film but was not really touched by it.