Sex and violence aren't enough for a film without meaning

Rating: 7/10 (7 May 2007)

No question, this is one gripping film. It was hard to believe 2:25 hours had passed, in contrast to the several glances of the watch in about the same amount of time during Spiderman, wishing it would be over.
There are high production values. Many millions of Euros or dollars went into blowing up things and make-up for bullet wounds, not to mention the large hanging vat of human feces. Now why would they have suspended it to the ceiling other than for the dramatic value in the script? The suspended scheisse is a metaphor for the plausibility of most of the movie. Good fiction makes sense. Having a strong cast won't carry a shaky script. Director/screenwriter Paul Verhoeven has good command for the sensational, potboiler (Robocop, Showgirls, Basic Instinct), but he is out of his element when he tries to make a definitive statement on the cooperation of Holland's citizens with the Nazis. The reality in Holland as in France as is in the U.S. when power changes from one major political party to the other, some people can land on their feet and get along and go along.
We think that of Rachel/Ellis a few times, but she shows her true feelings at least twice: when she throws up in the beginning of her deception and later when she threatens to quit the Resistance if a betraying Dutch police inspector isn't removed from his office. Carice van Houten is eye-grabbing as the endangered Jewish gamine, Rachel Weiss, who later gives herself an all-over hair bleaching to look Teutonic. She has wonderful chemistry with the affable local Gestapo chief Sebastian Koch, who doesn't even raise his voice. The two live together in real life.
The double and triple crosses are worthy of Hitchcock, but near the end there are several accusations made, and they are not all resolved, particularly one against the Resistance leader Gerben Kuiypers, whose son Timothy was captured.
So many plot points were not worthy of belief: How could a bullet coming from the front just graze Rachel/Ellis forehead and then heal so quickly without a scar?
How did Rachel/Ellis get so good a command of German? There are several good incidents of plot foreshadowing, but this isn't one of them. If Muntze is that suspicious of Ellis why doesn't he have her followed when she goes "home" to get clothes? How could so great a guy as Muntze rise to head to Gestapo in Holland after operations in Poland and France?
How could Resistance member and doctor Hans Akkermans (Thom Hoffman)survive so many fire fights even though he shoots without cover, certainly rank-and-file Gestapo couldn't have been trusted with the knowledge?
How could Muntze after presumably hearing a full confession from Ellis trust her to continue to work in a sensitive position in Gestapo headquarters? How could Hans have become so silent so quickly when he had been so forceful, heart attack for a man presumably in his late 30s to 40?
Whose side was Ronnie on in arranging the final jail break, of Muntze and Ellis? How does Ronnie keep from getting her head shaved by the mob as a Nazi whore?
Why would attorney Smaal keep such detailed records in his black book, which could have been a ticket to execution for him and his wife if it had fallen in Nazi hands? And why doesn't Verhoeven ever put a gun in Ellis'/Rachel's hand when she is in mortal danger?
Sex and violence makes the time of the movie go quickly, but leave the viewer unsatisfied after its over. There needs to be meaning, too.