Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 16, 2011

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 16, 2011

A hard-core war film with raw violence, intense action, graphic sexuality and a twisting plot that offers a series of surprises.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 1, 2007

Paul Verhoeven's WWII drama stars the lovely Dutch actress Carice van Houten as a Jewish Resistance worker, and costars her breasts. All three deserve awards consideration.

Full Review | Apr 30, 2007

The happy ending demands that [Verhoeven's] return-journey film -- Black Book -- be a rousing artistic triumph. It isn't. Too many of his lazy Hollywood habits have followed him home.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 27, 2007

Insanely entertaining -- and often just plain insane -- World War II melodrama. You may hate yourself in the morning, but you'll have to admit Verhoeven gives you a lot of bang for your buck.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 27, 2007

Verhoeven cites David Lean as an influence, and the film has Lean's epic scope and crackerjack timing, if not his mannerly refinement. (The 145-minute running time zips right by.)

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 27, 2007

Black Book doesn't let the grim facts of the Holocaust get in the way of some ripping pulp.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 27, 2007

Despite the picture's subtitles and its imposing 145-minute running time, Black Book maintains a breakneck pace, pausing only long enough to raise some very interesting questions.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 27, 2007

Judged in dramatic terms, situational ethics drive the film, never slackening the pace nor making the nearly 2 1/2-hour running time seem overlong. Van Houten is rarely out of the frame, but she's no mere eye candy.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 27, 2007

A lurid, pulpy, slightly perverse potboiler, Black Book suffers mainly from its utter lack of seriousness.

| Apr 23, 2007

Stout-hearted celebration of the Dutch Resistance or total smut? Try both.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 20, 2007

It's just another Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS disguised as an inspirational story of survival and courage.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 20, 2007

[Verhoeven] hasn't seemed like a serious filmmaker for some time.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 20, 2007

Commercial moviemaking of the highest order, superbly mounted and paced.

| Apr 20, 2007

Pushes all sorts of envelopes -- political, historical and erotic -- against the sanctified background of the Nazi Holocaust, hitherto unthinkable as the linchpin of a lively melodrama like Black Book.

Full Review | Apr 18, 2007

All that keeps the movie from collapsing into soap opera is the exuberant drive of the filmmaking. And the central performance. Van Houten is pretty without being beautiful.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 13, 2007

Some may find scenes excessive and take offense at the suggestion that there were good Nazis like Ludwig. But one thing that can be said for Black Book: It's never boring.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 13, 2007

Its essential trashiness too often takes over. Rather than wondering about Rachel/Ellis' dilemma, you find yourself pondering Verhoeven's consistency in setting up bedroom shots so that there's always a nipple in the frame.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 13, 2007

Returning to the Netherlands has been a godsend for Verhoeven, energizing his talents and focusing his directorial powers like never before.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 13, 2007