Black Book

Will Black Book mark Paul Verhoeven’s triumphant return? The guy behind such gut-wrenching “classics” as RoboCop, Basic Instinct, and Starship Troopers seemed to have the potential to become one of our most talked-about directors, a bastard hybrid of Sam Peckinpah and Fellini at his most indulgent. Then, however, his career slipped into the toilet with two bombs, Showgirls and Hollow Man. With Black Book, Verhoeven has abandoned Hollywood, returning to Holland and a subject that has been on his mind for seventeen years: the Dutch resistance. The story of a Jewish woman who uses her sly sexuality to infiltrate the Nazis and pays the price, Black Book is all Verhoeven—bloody, erotic, and filled with loathsome characters. Here, the Nazis and the Resistance men are equally brutish, and only our heroine emerges from the fray with anything resembling dignity.