If there’s one thing you can say about Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, it’s that his films are never boring. He’s shameless when it comes to the amounts of sex and violence he squeezes into his films, and this isn’t typical bouncy violence but cold, serious violence that manage to have whiffs of dark comedy to it. The sex is sleazy and ridiculous, often outpacing the late-night flesh peddlers on Cinemax. I don’t think Verhoeven knows how to do anything subtle, and frankly I wouldn’t want him to. The man is responsible for brawny sci-fi (Total Recall, Robocop), killer lesbians (Basic Instinct), the most subversive mainstream Hollywood movie of the modern era (Starship Troopers is pro-fascism, people), and the most surreal visual effect I have seen in my life – a breast groping itself (Hollow Man). Verhoeven even shows up in person to accept his Razzie award for Worst Director for 1995’s camp classic, Showgirls. This man doesn’t have an off switch. The man makes enjoyable movies, both intentionally and unintentionally.

It’s been a long six years since Verhoeven’s last film and in that time off he’s settled back into his homeland. Black Book (Zwartboek) is a tale loosely based around true stories involving the Dutch resistance in the Nazi-occupied occupied Netherlands. And if there is anyone that can throw in some sex with our good old-fashioned WWII violence, it is Paul Verhoeven.

Rachel (Carice van Houten) is a Jew hiding out in the Netherlands. She and her family is trying to pass out of the country by river when they are ambushed by the guns of a Nazi boat. Rachel is the lone survivor and watches all of her family members get mowed down. She joins the underground resistance movement to find out who betrayed her family. She dyes her hair blonde, both above and below the waist to be thorough, and cuddles up to a stamp-collecting S.S. leader, Ludwig Muntz (Sebastian Koch). She works her way into his trust and along the way uncovers a twisty conspiracy to trick rich Jews into ambushed escapes.

Black Book is skillfully made and pulpy enough to keep the viewer’s enjoyment level in a good place. From start to finish the movie presents enough trials and setbacks to keep an audience satisfied, and enough sex and violence to meet out the standard Verhoeven quota. Nazi occupation hasn’t been deeply explored from the Dutch point of view, and Verhoeven decides not to make everything so black and white. Muntz is a compassionate S.S. officer that wants to work negotiations with resistance fighters to stop further bloodshed. Rachel deeply falls for him, at the disgust of some of her fellow men at arms. On the other side of the coin, once the Nazis have been toppled there are several Dutch civilians and bureaucrats that can behave just as cruel. Those now with power strike out against those deemed to have sympathized and collaborated with German rule. Verhoeven is making a point that there was good and bad on both sides, which is admirable, though this point has been made better elsewhere. Black Book is filled with various twists and double-crosses, so the audience is involved until the very end. Plus, the sex and violence help too.

There’s terribly little below the surface when it comes to Black Book. It’s a thrilling, unabashedly entertaining movie but nothing beyond a sexed-up, suped-up version of a 1940s behind-enemy-lines potboiler. The characters have little to them beyond basic motivations like greed and lust and revenge, so it all can seem like an empty but high-spirited, fun-filled time at the movies. Verhoeven has never imbued his female roles with much characterization, more often showcasing them as ass-kicking vaginas on legs (whoa, now there’s a mental image for you). Another flaw is how Black Book is structured. We open on a tourist trip to Israel in 1954 and see Rachel teaching a class of schoolchildren. This colossal misstep drains the tension from whenever Rachel is in danger; we already know she has to survive to teach our little ones. [I]Black Book[/I] is a largely fictional take, a collection of various historical pieces and figures, so that means that the outcome for our heroine is not preordained. Rachel very well could die amidst her undercover infiltration, but alas the movie opening in flashback erases this threat.

Van Houten is an enticing screen beauty that brings to mind Hollywood stars of old. She has a very simple, prim, elegant look to her, and a presence that is coy and sensual but far from trashy or vulgar. This helps add traces of believability to a figure that does some incredible acts in the name of God and country. Hollywood would have cast Rachel as a tall, buxom bombshell, but it would all be wrong. If this girl turned heads she would be dead. Van Houten gets thrown through the wringer, and at one point literally shit upon, and she handles it with steely grit. The best moments are when we see how Rachel rebounds from setbacks, when she is forced to break from her resolve and think. Her first encounter with Muntz in a train car is a good example, but even better is how she reacts when Muntz accuses her of dying her hair and being a Jew. She grabs his hands and places them on her hips and finally rests them on her exposed breasts. “Are these Jewish?” she asks. She defuses the situation and lives another day, and it’s perfectly played by a nervous but nervy Van Houten. She makes two plus enjoyable hours even more enjoyable.

Black Book is clearly and fairly rated R, but part of its rating piqued my curiosity. One of the items that help push the film into the restricted rating is “graphic nudity.” Now, what exactly is graphic nudity? I recall last year’s Babel also getting an R-rating for what was deemed “graphic nudity.” One thing the two films have in common is that they both show quick glimpses of exposed female genitalia. I suppose that the MPAA feels that nudity becomes graphic when we see pubic hair. This confounds me. What about pubic hair turns nudity into an extra, more offensive category of nudity? At the end of the day, it’s just hair, people. I did some quick research and [I]Basic Instinct[/I], infamous for Sharon Stone’s career-making leg crossing, is rated R for mere “strong sexuality.” For the record, when Stone flashes her naughty bits they were bare. So let the record show that hair seems to be the qualifier between what is nudity and what is graphic nudity. Maybe I’ll write a dissertation on this some day.

As for another aside, how freaking cool is the name Zwartboek? It sounds like some fun term I’d come across in the pages of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Dutch language is a tad bizarre for my American ears; it’s sounds like a mixture of English and German, and sometimes it seems like a subtitled sentence is actually direct English. I know I can’t stop saying “zwatboek” around my home in place of gasps and curses.

Black Book is Verhoeven’s first Dutch language film in over 25 years, and it also feels like he’s enjoying movies again after his bad experiences across the Atlantic. I welcome more entertaining Dutch films from their favorite filmmaking son. He may not be he most subtle man behind a camera, but we already have plenty Terrence Mallicks and Gus van Sants to bring confounding contemplation to movies. We need more people like Vanhoeven who know how to please the sense, kick you in the balls, and make you grateful for the experience.

Nate’s Grade: B