Derek de Lint

Filmmaker Paul Verhoeven returned to the Netherlands after more than twenty years of success in Hollywood to direct this epic-scale war drama based on a true story. Rachel Steinn (Carice van Houten) is a beautiful Jewish woman living in German-occupied Holland during late 1944. Her family members - who have been falsely promised safe passage to Belgium (their names recorded in the 'black book' of the title) are instead robbed and slaughtered by the Germans on a premeditated basis; Rachel herself manages to escape by diving into the water and swimming away. She narrowly avoids capture, then joins the local resistance movement. With her hair dyed blonde, Rachel can easily pass for Aryan, and when the leader of the Dutch resistance movement learns his son has been captured by Axis forces, Rachel is asked to use her feminine charms to persuade a German commander to arrange for the boy's release. Rachel soon finds herself caught up in a dangerous double life as she becomes a sexual plaything for the Nazis while attempting to bring down their evil empire as a spy. Zwartboek was written by Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman, who collaborated on the 1977 international success Soldier of Orange. Zwartboek received its world premier at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Despite having lived relatively close to one another their entire lives, twins Tom and Thomas (both played by Aaron Johnson) have never met, though they are well aware of each other's existence. Coming together as people sometimes do in dire circumstances, Thomas finally runs into Tom as the latter is on the run from some malevolent child smugglers. As the kidnappers mistake Thomas for Tom and attempt to smuggle him out of the country via airplane, the original target must take matters into his own hands if he is ever to see his brother again and bring the family together. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Soul Assassin is an action movie from The Netherlands made by music video director Laurence Malkin. Skeet Ulrich plays Kevin Burke, a recently promoted young executive at Jorgensen Financial in Rotterdam. After a hit man murders his girlfriend Rosalind (Katherine Lang), he goes off in search of the killers. Eventually, he gets his boss Karl Jorgensen (Derek de Lint) and the entire security division of the company on the investigation. This makes Karl's son Junior (Antonie Kamerling) jealous. Kristy Swanson plays the mysterious mobster Tessa. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Sara is an imaginative little girl who lives with her mother and her grandfather. Though happy enough, she dreams of reuniting her mother with her seldom-seen father, a national chess champion. When one of her school chums introduces her to the world of chess, she begins to spin an elaborate scenario involving the Queen. Tired of the laziness of her King, the Queen decides to vigorously attack her rivals. With elements to please both children and adults, this Dutch comedy drama follows the exploits of Sara and her Queen as they work to bring her estranged parents back together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This romantic mystery is based on a novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford and chronicles a journalist's investigation of his bride-to-be's disappearance. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

If Angie (Annemarie Rottgering) has been in trouble with the law, it's no big deal to her, since everyone she knows has been in similar straits at one time or another. She has just gotten out of a juvenile offenders home, and is trying to settle in with her mother and her mother's new boyfriend, but when he tries to rape her, she heads for the home of her older brother Alex (Daniel Boissevain). He has been earning his living by stealing cars. While there, Angie makes friends with a waiter (Hidde Schols) who has some serious markers out with the mob for his gambling. Angie, her brother and her new boyfriend commit a robbery and then must go on the run from both the police and the mob. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The "endless game" is espionage, which goes on and on despite government upheavals and changing international attitudes. Albert Finney plays a retired secret agent called back to active duty. Finney is entrusted with the task of finding out why his fellow retirees are being killed off. One of the victims is a woman who'd once been Finney's lover. Anthony Quayle makes his final screen appearance in this made-for-cable suspenser. Endless Game was written and directed by Bryan Forbes--surprisingly, his first foray into the spy-film genre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this enigmatic drama, Inni Wintrop (Derek de Lint) has led a directionless life for many years. Orphaned at an early age, but with plenty of money up until the stock market crash of 1987, he has done a little bit of everything. He has no strong desires, and is not a very warm-hearted man. He strikes up an acquaintance with Phillip Taads (Thom Hoffman), the son of someone who was kind to him in his youth. The son has all the ambition he lacks, but it is focused on the acquisition of antique pottery and an obsessive desire to rid himself of all attachments. He is a perverse kind of Zen student. The interaction between these men helps each of them shed some light on their lives, but does not, apparently, bring about any major transformations. This film is based on the popular novel Rituelen by Cees Nooteboom. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Marion Meade, this costume drama retelling of the doomed 12th century romance of Abelard and Heloise was directed by Clive Donner. Abelard (Derek de Lint) is a philosophy professor at the cathedral school of Notre Dame. Considered the greatest teacher in Paris at a time when professors of philosophy are required to be chaste, Abelard is a champion of reason and a man of the people. Despite what it could mean to his career and standing, however, Abelard falls in love with a student, Heloise (Kim Thomson), an upper class teenage girl raised in a convent and possessing an insatiably curious intellect, along with a rebellious attitude toward the second-class status of women in her society. When word of the relationship begins to filter out, Heloise's ambitious uncle Fulbert (Denholm Elliott), who had hoped to marry her off to a wealthy gentlemen, schemes to end the romance, as does the bishop of Paris (Bernard Hepton). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Three Men and a Baby is an Americanized remake of the 1985 French comedy hit Three Men and a Cradle. Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg play three upwardly mobile New York bachelors who share an apartment. Their even-keel lifestyle is thrown out of whack when a young woman leaves a baby on their doorstep, suspecting that film director Danson is the father. The balance of the film is devoted to milking as much humor as possible out of the situation of three urbane young men trying to play nursemaid with nary a clue of what they're doing (at one point, a desperate Selleck offers Guttenberg a thousand dollars if Guttenberg will change a diaper). A subplot involving drug dealers is thrown in to sustain audience interest after our trio of heroes become accustomed to a baby around the apartment. "Urban legend" aficionados please note: That cardboard cutout of Ted Danson briefly glimpsed in one scene of Three Men and a Baby is not the ghost of a little boy who died in the bachelors' apartment before filming started. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Dutch-filmed Assault was based on a novel by Harry Mulisch. Presented in a non-linear, flashback/flashword fashion, the film tells the story of a physician whose family was killed by the Nazis during World War II. This came about after the family's neighbors dragged the body of a dead collaborator to their doorstep. The doctor spends his entire adult life trying to find out why his neighbors had betrayed his family. At various isolated moments of political upheaval in Europe, the doctor comes closer and closer to the truth. During a 1984 anti-missile rally, the mystery is solved--and the answer is more complex than anyone back in 1945 had imagined. The hero's "growth" is thus placed in the context of the international turmoil of the four decades following the war. Marc van Uchelen plays the main character as a 12-year-old, while Derek de Lint portrays the adult physician. In a nicely underplayed symbolic touch, Monique van de Ven is cast in a dual role, playing de Lint's wife in the "present" scenes, and an older woman who is murdered by the Nazis because she shelters young van Uchelen in the flashback sequences. The Assault was the "best foreign film" Academy Award winner of 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Not a French revolution epic as might be assumed, Bastille is a modern social drama filmed in Holland. Derek de Lint plays the grown-up child of Dutch Holocaust victims. Throughout the first half of the film, he denies his past even while seeking out the facts behind his parents' demise. His indecision gives way to obsession: before the film has drawn to a close, he has convinced himself that he is capable of going back in time and changing history. Director Rudolph Van den Berg sometimes seems as confused as his Bastille protagonist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide