Cinema - Black Book

68-year-old Dutch director Paul Verhoeven unwittingly joined the ranks of infamy with his 1995 flop, Showgirls. The movie was heralded as one of the worst ever made, winning seven 1995 Golden Raspberry Awards or "Razzies" from a record thirteen nominations. (Sportingly, Verhoeven actually appeared in person at the ceremony to accept his ‘award’ for Worst Director). The film later added to its tally with an eighth Razzie Award for Worst Picture of the Last Decade in 2000. Its notoriety eventually led to the film achieving a sort-of cult-like status - affording it a popularity based on ironic appreciation. Film critics and fans even adopted the term ‘Showgirls-bad’ to refer to films considered guilty pleasures, or ‘so-bad-they're-good.’

With such a history, then, it was inevitable that Verhoeven’s latest offering, Black Book would be closely scrutinised for signs of being ‘Showgirls-bad’ or even just plain bad. For Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian this story of a beautiful young Jewish woman who falls for a Gestapo officer while seeking revenge for her family's murders displays them in abundance. “Sitting through his cheesy new soft-porn second world war resistance drama”, says Bradshaw, “is like discovering a particularly humourless episode of 'Allo 'Allo... with an awful lot of contrived toplessness”. Elsewhere, though, it has fared a little better, inspiring such not quite glowing adjectives as ‘slick’, ‘well-staged’ and ‘rousing’. It’s definitely an hour too long, though. ER