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Soldier of Orange Movie Review

Soldier of Orange is a 1977 Dutch historical drama film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbe. It’s a perfectly solid, but forgettable flick.

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“Should anything go wrong, cyanide“

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A Dutch aristocrat and his university friends join the resistance movement against the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Others have a different role in the war, as a collaborator. Queen Wilhelmina meanwhile lives in exile in London. This movie reminded me so much of those countless foreign Oscar winners from the seventies all the way up to the nineties, which is why its exclusion from the Oscar race surprised me.

Why does it feel similar to those winners? Because it’s a solid movie that can appeal to a wider demographic, but it isn’t special in anything that it does. The storyline is only serviceable. Yes, we get a different, more unique perspective on WWII, but it’s not authentic enough for me, and I was not terribly engaged with this overall story to be honest.

Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbe are both excellent here. Others are much less memorable than these two well developed, interesting personalities. The actors are great in their roles and their dynamic was wonderful. The only truly authentic approach to this movie is the addition of homoerotic imagery, which made it more interesting in those parts where it was present.

Still though, Soldier of Orange is mostly devoid of the director’s signature touches. A lot has been said about the works of Paul Verhoeven, but most of his famous movies are different, dark and very intriguing. This one is nothing of the sort. It lacks his stronger directorial flair and in both substance and style he did not bring anything of true originality and interest to this straightforward tale.

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The movie is not well paced at all. It’s also overlong to the point of becoming dull in some inferior stretches. It is thrilling, that’s for sure. It succeeds in that area quite a bit. It’s also handsomely crafted in terms of technicalities and quite moving at times, but the intelligence and more interesting dialogue are lacking.

Soldier of Orange is a perfectly solid period piece that is never really special at any time. The main acting performances are great and so are the characters, the movie is handsomely crafted and it’s thrilling at times, but it’s lacking in terms of sophistication and originality. It’s also too long and not that well paced.

My Rating – 3.5