Black Book (2006)
I was very intrigued when I realized that Verhoeven had made a WW2 resistance film. It is everything I hoped it would be, which means it was still full of surprises despite being filled with his trademarks of sleaze, melodrama and extreme violence. Only Verhoeven could have pulled this style off, where it does take its subject matter seriously - it isn’t a parody or anything. It depicts the brutality of the Nazi occupation without making light out it. Yet it still manages to be funny, sleazy, entertaining with one crazy turn of events after another. Other WW2 films are usually more dreary, serious, heavy and tragic. Verhoeven manages to not do that, without compromising the respect for the subject. So many odd scenes that doesn’t feel like they belong in a WW2 movie, yet he makes it work perfectly. It feels right for all the wrong reasons, or wrong for all the right reasons.
Rating: 4