fits the big screen

Rating: 9/10 (4 May 2009)

There had been many war time movies before this one. It has the outstanding quality being shot on location in Holland. This makes the film visually very believable. Germans actually play the Germans, speaking German in the dutch original version, again this adds to the credibility of the historical background. The story is based on historical facts however not true in that combination. Essentially it is a thriller, shot from the perspective of a Jewish actress/dancer who is a fugitive in occupied Holland trying to find out who delivers Jewish inhabitants to the Germans. It is very entertaining with all the action required, a beautiful lead actress and a string of highly skilled supporting actors.With all the details in the film Verhoeven does a good job of putting them all together into one story. There is not a single enjoyable detail in a scene that does not propel the overall story and makes sense sooner or later. Personally I find it very pleasurable to see that the outcome does not rely on the outstanding abilities of individuals but has everyone washed away in the wartime events. It is big entertainment filling over 2 hours, I saw it in a cinema late 2006 in Holland, one of the few productions maybe ten years back that really fit the big screen. On the other hand it can be taken as a serious look at the Dutch past with a view to a wider future of events as given by the flashback setup. Overall the film brilliantly succeeds in bringing back the past in full colour without ever looking like costumes and stages which is remarkable by itself in that genre.