Flesh and Blood (1985)

[Ellie]

I saw this on Showtime the other evening. It stars Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It was almost a porn flick. It was funny and quite strange.  Have you seen it? And what are your thoughts?

[Gerry]

Yeah, I've seen it...early Paul "Basic Instinct" Verhoeven film, so the nudity shouldn't surprise anyone who's familiar with his work.

It's pretty bad overall though one bit is funny when Hauer kills off a bunch of disgusting peasants by kicking some rotten meat into their well.  hehe.

[Ellie]

The meat was actually from a dog that had been infected with the plague. uughh.

[Scott]

I remember seeing this film about 15 years ago. I liked it as it was set in the dark or middle ages and involved the plague. Yes, it had a few raunchy scenes as I remember. The film was a neat little adventure. Always like those medieval films. Back then I didn't even know who Rutger Haur was.

[Yaddo42]

I liked when I first saw it years ago, having only heard the name and being on a quest to find other Hauer films at the time. I still enjoy it but less so now that I'm older.

Yeah, kinda rough and surprising with the nudity, the violence, and the weird mix of grim tone and almost swashbuckling lighthearted action, but Verhoeven is quirky anyway. But I just looked at it as a take on how little life could mean during those times. It is hoaky at times (the "Junkyard Wars" style siege engine built so quick, the hero's devotion to his bride-to-be he barely knows) but has some good action and decent acting for an adventure. Plus it's cool to see (a skinny) Hauer and Brion James in their primes. There's a very good review over at Teleport City.

If you haven't seen it already I'd recommend another Verhoeven/Hauer film "Solder of Orange". It's a more conventional than "Flesh and Blood" and is WWII action/drama from the Dutch perspective, an interesting film based on the life of a real resistance fighter. No idea how accurate it is, but still worth looking up.

[AlexB]

Right at the start of his career, Verhoeven made a medieval action series for kids, starring Rutger Hauer (think Roger Moore in Ivanhoe). Both were completely unknown at the time. Verhoeven had only made promotion movies for the Dutch marines (he was a marine) and Hauer was a struggling actor. In the words of Verhoeven: we wanted someone who could ride a horse, handle a sword and didn't look too bright, so we ended up with Rutger.

The series 'Floris' grew to mythical proportions (a remake is in the works as we speak). Rumour has it that many years later, Verhoeven came across an unused script for a Floris episode , jazzed it up a bit and this became Flesh and Blood. Imagine Roger Moore doing an X-rated version of Ivanhoe, with buckets of gore!

[JohnL]

>In the words of Verhoeven: we wanted someone who could ride a horse, handle
>a sword and didn't look too bright, so we ended up with Rutger.

That last part seems strange to me, because in all the early movies I saw him in, he always seemed like one of the most intelligent people in the film.