Verhoeven's Laugh A Minute War-a-thon

Rating: 1/10 (1 November 2008)

A cartoon-strip conflation of half a dozen true stories, Black Book is Showgirls meets James Bond with a bucket of faeces thrown in for good measure.
As it was bound to be: although ageing director Paul Verhoeven did, once upon a time, have something to say, and something to contribute to world cinema, nowadays he's not so much the fiction as the pulp itself.
Crying out for Nestle sponsorship in its testament to the life-saving power of chocolate, Black Book is wartime and post-wartime Netherlands as it never was and Mata Hari as even she could never have been.
That it's brain-dead comes as no surprise given Verhoeven's provenance, though it is surprising that the Netherlands itself seemed so proud of this risible junk it tried to nominate it as a Best Film.
Best of what? Exploitation? Well, yup. Crassness? Definitely a winner there. Utter unreality? Ten out of ten. Immaturity? In a field of its own. Best Netherlands Musical? Very probably: the set-piece of a gallery of screaming crones tipping down a bucket of ordure is like a deranged out-take of a Verhoeven trial-run at Les Miserables.
Though it's sad that something as dire as this should get such high ratings here, IMDb reflects mass audience dumbing down; it doesn't cause it. So those who think it's more masterpiece than masturbatory are entitled to their view and Verhoeven is free to proceed with yet more and bigger buckets of shite to draw in the punters.
Hopefully, actress Carice van Houten won't have anything to do with it.
No brighter international star can surely have been born in such dismal circumstances: the lady has a talent and a screen presence that having survived Verhoeven will survive anything.
Rating: 1 out of 10 thanks to van Houten's performance. Without it, Black Book merits minus 9.
Recommendation: "The Night Porter". It's a movie. That alone distinguishes it from Verhoeven's work.