"Black Book" (Zwartboek)

Directed by: Paul Verhoeven

Starring: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijn

MPAA rating: R (for violence, sexuality, adult situations, some shocking scenes)

Running time: 135 minutes

Best suited for: the more traditional wartime thriller fanatic

Least suited for: the new wave warrior

Rachel Steinn (Carice van Houten) is a young Jewish woman hiding in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. It's late 1944, and one senses that Germany has already lost the war, but the atrocities continue. Among the occupying German elite, the atmosphere is one of edgy, rushed extravagance, the pleasures of immediate gratification. The Germans realize that defeat is imminent, that the spoils of their victory are temporary and fleeting. Many expect to die soon.

In "Black Book," director Paul Verhoeven has constructed a compelling, intense wartime thriller. Rachel is continually on the run from the Nazis, with few places left to hide. After her family is murdered, her only hope seems to be in the hands of the Dutch underground. But danger lurks there as well.

Despite well-planned strikes against their occupiers, the freedom fighters--or "terrorists," as the Nazis call them--seem thwarted at every turn. Clearly, there is a traitor amongst them. The resistance is slow (slower than many in the audience, I believe) to catch on. On several occasions, German soldiers are waiting and many Dutchmen are killed. The underground leader, Gerben Kuipers (Derek de Lint), asks the young, attractive Rachel to infiltrate the local Gestapo headquarters, using her feminine charms, hoping to glean information.

"Black Book" is beautifully rendered. There's a sense of throwback to an older style war movie- none of the jittery, clipped-frame cinematography that "Saving Private Ryan" made vogue almost overnight. "Black Book" is also more war thriller--a mysterious who-done-it more so than than battle-dependent war chronology. The Jews who were systematically murdered are not part of Hitler's master plan, but rather pawns in the lethal robbery scheme of German officers hoping to ensure their financial security after Germany's surrender.

In that plot-driven way, "Black Book" is engrossingly chilling, at times mesmerizing.

There's a fair share of bloodshed and wartime mayhem. Aafter all, Verhoeven directed "Robocop" and "Starship Troopers," neither film for the faint of heart. The violence here is not gratuitous, and there's no misinterpreting Verhoeven's intent to give us a character-driven study of young Rachel, complete with the sometimes shocking decisions she makes to ensure her survival.

Yet I perceived nothing new in Verhoeven's approach, or in his visualization of resistance fighters during Nazi occupation. This isn't a "modernization" of the genre, but rather a fairly traditional interpretation of ragtag rebels fighting a superior occupying force.

I believe the biggest flaw here is that "Black Book" reaches to cover a great deal of ground- perhaps too much so, in Rachel's long and extremely dangerous year with the underground. Many scenes seem hurried and character development feels occasionally marginal. Rachel's affair with an SS officer, the surprisingly sympathetic Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch), is unfortunately truncated by events that director Verhoeven appears obliged by necessity to rush into play.

Much of "Black Book's" nuance may have been left on the cutting room floor. I suspect that we'll be eventually treated to an extended "Director's Cut" DVD version that fills out the film's weaker moments. Hey, it worked wonders with Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven," adding nearly 50 minutes of essential film time to the original theatrical release.

Interestingly, I found "Black Book's" last scene quite telling. Without spoiling the moment for you, I'll only admit that I felt a similar "war improves nothing" weightiness that I sensed at the end of Steven Spielberg's "Munich." Perhaps the day of the gung-ho, macho warrior as a Hollywood hero to be emulated is fading. Even in those energetic, casualty-heavy war films of late- "Saving Private Ryan," "Black Hawk Down," "Full Metal Jacket," "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Glory"- I perceive a sense of ultimate futility, a discreet antiwar sentiment permeating the edge of consciousness.

Is Hollywood trying to tell us something?

For those who are calling Verhoeven's "Black Book" the essential WWII resistance flick, might I also recommend Andrzei Wajda's superb "Kanal" (1957), Louis Malle's "Lacombe Lucien" (1974, about a young and naive Nazi collaborator), Jean-Pierre Melville's extraordinary and recently re-released "L'Armee des Ombres" ("Army of Shadows") and, although some may disagree, Martin Ritt's passionate, if melodramatic, "Five Branded Women" (1960).

Certainly Verhoeven's effort belongs among this upper-crust elite. But for the connoisseur of tense wartime thrillers, there's a bounty of remarkable films to explore.