Review of Black Book (2006) by Tristan M — 03 Jan 2016

Not a whole lot of really good movies about the resistance in WWII, and even less featuring a female lead actor. This is definitely one of the best in the first category, up there with Flame and Citron, and far better than Defiance, Soldier of Orange, or Army of Crime.

There is a few things that didn't go great with me, for one the B-17 bomb that landed right beside their boat would have put a quick end to the movie and killed them both, and the action, although not bad, did seen a bit one sided in favour of the resistance when it should have favoured the Germans, and the people getting gunned down could have been preformed better.

But those are minor setbacks to an otherwise great movie, that tells it's story very well and doesn't glorify anything or end in a unrealistic happily ever after. It doesn't shy away from gore, although not particularly common when it's shown it doesn't hold back.

Also the nudity is rather similar and doesn't hold back, and that in itself is a character in the movie, as holds a big importance to the events. Like all movies about the resistance or occupied territory in WWII many of the characters are double crossers, trying to survive and join the winning side, and it makes for characters that almost always cannot be trusted.

Often we can detect this beforehand, but it's not too obvious. The story isn't exactly fast paced, but it's not really slow, and has the content to keep us engaged, as if we don't something important will surely be missed.

The ending is good, has us torn between who to root for, who are the real bad guys and who is bad but we still like. It ends good, most loose ends are tied up, but we find most of our characters dead, through various causes, mostly bullets.

Overall good movie, could have benefited from better action and slightly faster pace, but all in all portrays what it tries to almost to perfection.