Thom Hoffman Movies

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

The collapse of Spain's fascist leadership in 1975 has unexpected repercussions elsewhere in Europe in this taut suspense drama. Charles Williamsen (Thom Hoffman) is an American who has come to the French Basque countryside to do research on birds. Charles meets a fellow traveler and bird enthusiast, Miranda Fernandez (Ines de Medeiros), who is from Spain and whose father is an advisor to Franco. Charles and Miranda soon grow fond of one another, though as they get to know each other she finds herself repeatedly drawn into conversations with others about Franco's rapidly failing health, prompted in part by her father's imminent arrival. Charles and Miranda are staying at the same hotel, where they encounter fellow guests Mitch (Hans Meyer) and Beth (Catherine de Seynes). Many of the locals seem quite familiar with Mitch, though he claims to be a British tourist who has never visited the area before, and while Mitch's explanations seem convincing, no one is sure why he is using a surveillance camera to monitor the activities of a nearby farmhouse -- or how Charles got a pair of military-grade night-vision goggles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on the true story of a priest who risked his life in order to help people no one else would touch (a wager he would eventually lose), Father Damien stars David Wenham as the titular Belgian saint. In 1872, Damien, a young Catholic priest serving as a missionary near Hawaii, volunteers to spend three months working in a colony for victims of leprosy on the island of Molokai. When he arrives, he discovers the lepers have been herded to a barely inhabitable part of the island where they're treated like animals. Damien is shocked, and makes it his crusade to improve the lives of the lepers, planting trees to help buffer the island's strong winds and building huts to house the sicker members of the tribe. Damien also concerns himself with their spiritual needs, restoring a sense of dignity and self-respect among the diseased and urging them away from drinking, sex, and other sinful behavior. At first, Damien's pleas to the mainland for medicine, supplies, and medical help fall on deaf ears, but soon the press picks up on Damien's story -- which only angers the Hawaiian government, who would prefer the plight of the lepers be forgotten. Damien is destined to spend the last years of his life on Molokai when he contacts the disease himself, working to ease the pain of his fellow victims to his last breath. Father Damien boasts a star-studded supporting cast, including Sam Neill, Peter O'Toole, Leo McKern, Kris Kristofferson, and Derek Jacobi. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The naked body of a murdered little girl is found in a forest surrounding a small Eastern European town. It's the third case in a row, and local police detective Victor Marek (Richard E. Grant) is on the killer's trail, but his superior, Novak (James Laurenson), needs to solve the crime quickly in order to boost his political career. So he arrests some suspicious hippie who later hangs himself in a prison cell. Though Marek is ordered to close the case, he continues to work on it on his own. He rents an old gas station and a house in the area where the murders took place. Working from a drawing done by one of the murdered girls he tries to find the clues for the identity of the killer. Marek becomes so obsessed with his quest that when he meets Milena (Lynsey Baxter), a single young woman with a little daughter (Perdita Weeks), he does not hesitate to use the child as the bait for the criminal. Though the film plot bears a strong resemblance to Sean Penn's movie The Pledge, it is actually a remake of the 1958 German film It Happened in Broad Daylight, scripted by Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt, who later reworked his original screenplay into the novel The Pledge. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide

This documentary places the viewer at the feet of Adriaan Ditvoorst a much-lionized darling of Dutch avant-garde cinema, a largely unsuccessful adherent of the auteur school of filmmmaking who took his own life in 1987. His films (such as Flanagan and White Madness) recognized no need to please or acknowledge audience wishes or the demands of commerce, and Ditvoorst was puzzled by and disdainful of the success of those who did. He found it incredibly difficult to find financial backing in the Netherlands for even the most modest film projects, despite his prominence, innovativeness and originality. After his wife left him, he sank into a depression. The documentary explores his life via film clips and interviews with those who knew him. Some of those interviewed assert that he might have done well if he had moved to France, others felt he was always depressive and self-defeating. Whatever else he was, he was definitely a committed idealist who suffered for his principles. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Although at no point are the viewers given any hint of what the ongoing interrogation of the woman in this film is about, or what she is accused of, reviewers found this somewhat abstract dramatic study in investigation and questioning unusually absorbing. In addition to the accused, numerous witnesses to the never-disclosed crime are questioned in a similarly enigmatic fashion in their homes and apartments. Later, the witnesses are brought together into a large room, where they are confronted again. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Though it is hardly the reputation the Netherlands has around the world, this small nation has significant numbers of very dedicated religious believers, and many of them are to be found in small towns or on islands away from the big cities. In this story, one such group dominates life on an island off the coast from Rotterdam. In the story, a group of adolescents have grown up together in this wholesomely close-knit, if slightly repressed, community. They even remain friends after they discover the joys and terrors of sex. Each of them goes on to adult occupations. One becomes an accomplished musician, and another, the preacher's son, comes back to the island as an important reporter. While he is there a horrible murder takes place, and he becomes involved in the investigations that follow. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Unlike the reclusive J.D. Salinger, who has never allowed any of his stories or novels to be made into movies, this 1947 Dutch novel, which was to the same generation of youngsters growing up in the Netherlands what The Catcher In The Rye was for Americans, was made into a well-appreciated film in 1989. In the story, Fritz van Egters (Thom Hoffman) has already flunked out of college, and is suffering through a boring office job. He still lives at home with his tiresomely doctrinaire communist parents, and has a set of friends who don't do much to excite interest either. The time period of the film is Fritz's Christmas to New Year's holiday break, during which he seeks to find some escape from the tedium of his life. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This avant-garde film by Frans van de Staak follows four persons (each played by two different actors alternating in the roles) as they rush about the streets of Amsterdam, each of them extremely busy doing something. One highlight of the film is the reading of several of the poems of celebrated poet Gerrit Kouwenaar. Despite its severely experimental style and deliberate storylessness, this film was sufficiently inventive and rhythmically interesting to receive a warm reception from some critics. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Tom Hulce plays a Polish Jew who turns to the Dutch profiteer Theo (Jeroen Krabbe) for help to escape from the Nazis. Theo refuses to help the fugitive because he has no money, but the desperate visitor insists on staying. Theo risks his life by giving the man food and shelter. Hulce's character (who is never referred to as Shadowman) jumps into an Amsterdam canal and swims for his life while the Nazis try to gun him down. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Nite Song is essentially wishful thinking, albeit handled in a credible fashion. Bobby Smith and Thom Hoffman star as a couple of inner city kids. Surrounded at all sides by crack and coke dealers, the boys are sorely tempted to join the drug scene. Only their unshakeable religious convictions save Bobby and Thom from ruination. This inspirational video was released by Heartland Productions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This romantic thriller is set in Amsterdam and centers upon a happily married, financially comfortable young couple whose lives are destroyed when the wife is killed in a car crash en route to London. The distraught husband falls into a deep well of despair. One year later, his depression is lifted when he meets a woman named Eileen who is an exact double of his late wife. The husband becomes obsessed with her. The woman becomes frightened, but cannot seem to escape her stalker. Eventually she succumbs to his persistent advances, but the result is only more confusion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

More a collection of characters and scenery in the region of Parma than a drama with a hefty storyline, this film focuses on three main protagonists. Anna (Valeria D'Obici) is a waitress who develops an interest in Tom (Thom Hoffman) who rolls into town on his jeep to photograph the peasants and townies. The young Andrea (Andrea Puglisi) is also in town visiting his aunts. The three young people meet and decide to go do things together; they fish, they banter and scamper about, and in general are supplemented by a wide range of local color that is just a tad over the top. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide