'Black Book'

Like many of its characters, "Black Book" is engaged in acts of deception. It appears to be an old-fashioned World War II movie, but that turns out to be a ruse. As epic as its two-hours-and-25-minute running time indicates, "Black Book" is as subversive as it is traditional, both enamored of conventional notions of heroism and frankly contemptuous of them.

By Kenneth Turan

April 4, 2007