Flesh+Blood

After the success of Conan the Barbarian, the 80's saw a glut of Midevil adventure movies, but none of them stand on the same ground as Flesh and Blood. No movie, at the time, was more unabashedly filled with gore and nakedness. It doesnt try to be glossy or romantic in any way but isnt heavyhanded or serious either.

As he was so often in nearly every role he played, Rutger Hauer is perfect and at ease, alive, and eating up every frame of film he is in. A sad reminder of the days when he had so much promise, before he went downhill into Direct-To-Video Land.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is caught in one of her rare stilted preformances. Instead of going above the b-movie tone, she sort of wallows in it, but everyone else in the movie is also over the top and caricatured, so the film does not suffer and is invigorated instead of being obtuse.

The perfect blend of violence and sex, good and bad acting, b-movie tone with a studio budget. One enjoyable movie.

When a fortified city is taken from its rightful ruler while he is away he hires mercenaries to help retake it. I promises that they can have twenty four hours to loot as the please but once they are victorious he betrays them; ordering them to disarm and leave any treasure they have found. Soon afterwards the departing mercenaries discover a statue of St Martin and take it as a sign that their leader, also called Martin will make them rich. Not long after this they meet the man who betrayed them and make off with wagons loaded with valuables... and Agnes, the young woman promised to his son Steven. The mercenaries rape her but soon it becomes clear that Martin wants her for himself; especially after she helps him seize a castle which the mercenaries use as their new home. Of course things are far from over and they will have to contend with attacks from opposing forces and an outbreak of the plague!

If you have seen other films from director Paul Verhoeven you will have an idea of what to expect; violence, sex and nudity. While this means it won't appeal to everybody it didn't feel overly gratuitous. The film captures the filth and unpleasantness of the era in a way that might feel familiar to people watching things like 'Game of Thrones' now but would have been unusual at a time when things were far more sanitised. Our protagonists are more morally ambiguous than one expect; Martin is far from heroic as he forces himself onto Agnes and later she shows a cunning side as she appears to fall in love with him but doesn't forget Steven... one feels she will do what it takes to survive in the least unpleasant way possible. Rutger Hauer impresses as Martin and Jennifer Jason Leigh does a solid job as Agnes. The supporting cast are pretty good too. The action scenes are suitably gritty with many characters getting killed in ways that aren't swift and painless. One or two of these deaths are also quite inventive thanks to Steven's scientific approach to warfare. Overall one for fans of the genre who don't like things overly sanitised.

In 1501, in the Western Europe, in a period when the black plague is jeopardizing the populations, an army of mercenary peasants leaded by Martin (Rutger Hauer) fights side-by-side with the noble Arnolfini (Fernando Hilbeck) to retrieve his castle, with the promise of a huge reward. However, the band is betrayed by Arnolfini, and decides to pay him back, assaulting and stealing a caravan under the command of Arnolfini and his son and student, Steven (Tom Burlinson). In one of the wagon is traveling the fiancée of Steven, Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is accidentally kidnapped and later raped by the group. Agnes becomes Martin's mate, and the mercenaries decide to invade a castle, without knowing that the army of Arnolfini is chasing them.

"Flesh & Blood" is one of the best movies in the Middle Ages I have ever seen: it is a Machiavellian, violent, amoral and hypnotic adventure, indeed very brutal, with the peasants being poor and ignorant people, with dirty clothes, spoiled teeth, living in dirty and muddy villages. Therefore, a vision totally different from Hollywood movies, with fancy castles and villages with beautiful people. The direction of Paul Verhoven is efficient and perfect as usual, and the entire cast has magnificent and very natural performances, highlighting the amazing Rutger Hauer in the role of Martin, and Jennifer Jason Leigh who has one of her best performances, in the stunning role of a young woman that uses her body to fight for survival in a hostile environment. I have this movie on VHS, but I bought the DVD recently released in Brazil by the distributor Continental, and it was a worthwhile investment, since the widescreen image and the sound are excellent. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Conquista Sangrenta" ("Bloody Conquest")

This film is definitely off the beaten track. I enjoyed it a lot, and thought that there were some truly stand-out performances here, notably Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Some other actors and actresses that I didn't recognize were excellent. The tone is relentlessly bleak as befits the times. A couple of scenes put the times in perspective. One is where Agnes and Stephen talk and flirt beneath the hanging corpses without giving much thought to what we would consider today the horrid nature of such a sight. Another is towards the end, when one of the women has been captured (Polly, I think) and is being raped, and the lord (Stephen's father) simply walks past, barely noticing. I don't know if they are simply there for shock value, or if Verhoeven is making the point that one cannot judge mores, morals, and customs of past ages by the standards of today. (Something done quite a bit these days, most notably about slavery.)

Some of the criticisms in other comments are valid. True, none of the characters are very likeable. I was sort of hoping that they would all be dead by the end of the movie. But, again, I'm judging them by 21st century standards. Also, about the plague. I'm sure Verhoeven knows that plague is spread by rat fleas, so all of the machinations about the plague has to be from people's points of view in 1501-2.

This film is worth viewing, but don't expect gallantry, chivalry, or even decency. And no, it's really not a "date movie" Grade: A

In this tale told by Paul Verhoeven and written by Gerard Soeteman, we follow a group of medieval mercenaries who get double-crossed by their commanding officer, which leads them down a path of revenge, crime and bloodshed. Essentially it's a Robin Hood story, or an underdog tale, but with no punches pulled and with a taste for the gore and splatter. Verhoeven is most known for his dark scifi action films, like Total Recall and RoboCop, but this film is very much his creation when it comes to the style.

And I have to admit that I like it a lot. Verhoeven's signature style is all over the screen with this one and it just might be one of the most brutal medieval adventure films I've ever seen. No one comes out of this film unscathed and it's such a jaded film that it's even hard to pick sides. The mercenaries are justified in their lust for revenge, but they also end up kidnapping the bride of the son of their betrayer and abusing her in very dark ways. On the other hand the bride is not a saint either, and very much not a damsel in distress, being willing to do whatever it takes to survive. Whereas the son of the betrayer, the groom as it may be, is perhaps the most virtuous of the whole cast, but even he has his dark tendencies.

And it's just a great adventure film in its own right. The setting is great, the characters are all shades of awesome, the action scenes are just the right amount of over the top and the whole film has this unmistakable style of the 80s. Blood and gore, smoke and shadows.

Very much worth a watch for all fans of dark and one of my favourite Verhoeven movies.