Director's Best

Rating: Null/10 (10 August 2010)

Black Book marked a return to filmmaking in his native Netherlands for director Paul Verhoeven, following an extended run in Hollywood with genre successes including Robocop and Total Recall (as well as unmitigated disasters in Showgirls and Hollow Man). Outside of his homeland, Verhoeven made a name for himself as a purveyor of mainstream cinematic sleaze, albeit with subversively hidden depths of astute societal observations underneath the boundary pushing sex and ultra-violence... Verhoeven (just about) at his best, Black Book serves as a reminder of the provocative auteur's talents, whilst retaining some of his old and somewhat peculiar fixations. An extraordinary performance from Carice van Houten, however, is the real drawer.