Flesh and Blood, 1985

Verhoeven's flair for cinematic excess, which reached its zenith in the nadir of Showgirls, informs nearly every frame of this movie. Despite some fairly low production values (the "armies" are small bands of extras), Verhoven still manages to show shocking and icky images, including pieces of a plague-infested dead dog and decaying hanged corpses. Jennifer Jason Leigh, spending roughly half her screen time in various states of undress, is the young naive girl who suffers love at first rape; she learns the bittersweet lesson that various men want to do various interesting things to her young body. She wasn't a good enough actress at this point to pull off the requisite duplicity/ confusion/ Stockholm Syndrome that her character demands. Rutger Hauer devours scenery as the morally ambiguous bandit/lover (as Jon Cryer said in the movie Hot Shots, "He's so complex!"). Even aside from JJL, virtually every female member of the cast is nude at some point (as are some of the males). The script suffers from plot holes you could drive a Buick through, including the "let's make everyone happy" happy ending. Decent widescreen transfer from a good print.

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