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tom.slacker.rodeo · @tom.slacker.rodeo@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Black Book 7/10

"Everyone has unknown depths, Hauptsturmfuehrer." This is a movie ultimately about the lengths people will go to in order to justify their actions. We see it echoed time and time again throughout the film, in scenes where a Christian man refusing to shoot someone until he can find a way to justify it religiously, to Elle's resistance comrades falling back to Jewish epithets as soon as they feel justified, to the final scene evoking the hypocrisy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a movie built upon desperation leading to compromised morales. Despite its powerful subtext, I find that the movie does not fire on all cylinders. Unlike other Verhoeven films like <i>Starship Troopers</i> or <i>Robocop</i>, where he presents a satisfying face-value movie first, and then adds subversive subtext, <i>Black Book</i> seems to be more about servicing the subtext first, and the WWII movie it's built upon comes second. I feel like the movie overall suffers for it, because some scenes feel like contrivances that don't serve the basic plot very well, and it takes you out of the moment. It's a shame, because Carice van Houten does such a great job acting in this. I'd still consider this a movie worth watching for Verhoeven fans, but I don't think this is him at his peak.

#movie

Published 2025-01-28 00:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere