Black Book

(4 Stars)

 Starting in Holland in September 1944,  things plunge straight into action, with Rachel (Carice van Houten) a Jew hiding out in the countryside with a strict Christian family. Rachel narrowly escapes being blown to smithereens. She is reunited with her family as they're shipped south by mysterious resistance worker Van Gein and is the only survivor when their boat is ambushed by an SS craft commanded by leering Guenther Franken. 

Assigned the name Ellis de Vries, she gets work in a food plant run by communist resistance worker Gerben Kuipers. Five months later she is involved in undercover missions. During one of these, she gets to know local Gestapo chief, Ludwig Muentze (Sebastian Koch), whom she first beds on resistance instructions and then falls for while working in his office. In the same office is Franken, whose sexual needs are catered to by co-worker Ronnie, an easy-come, easy-go girl. 

That's just the first hour of an incredibly dense plot that sees Muentze morph into a sympathetic character, and not through any simple conversion. Also, the loyalties of the resistance workers all come under suspicion when an opportunity to rescue Kuipers' imprisoned son goes horribly wrong.