INTRODUCTION: A MEDIEVAL MUD BATH OF MISERY
Flesh+Blood (1985), directed by Paul Verhoeven, is a grimy, cynical, blood-soaked epic set in the early 1500s. On paper, it sounds thrilling: a medieval tale of betrayal, lust, plague, and revenge, brought to life by the Dutch provocateur behind RoboCop and Total Recall. Unfortunately, what could have been a gripping historical thriller quickly descends into an unfocused, nasty slog of bad behavior, murky morality, and empty spectacle.
While it does offer some visual flair and showcases Verhoeven’s raw intensity, Flesh+Blood is ultimately a mostly negative experience—not because it’s dark, but because it lacks discipline. It mistakes ugliness for complexity and confusion for depth. And worst of all, it strands a capable cast in a script that confuses provocation with insight.
PLOT: HONOR AMIDST A PLAGUE PIT? DON’T COUNT ON IT.
The film opens in 1501 Italy, where a band of mercenaries led by the charismatic but unhinged Martin (Rutger Hauer) are double-crossed by their noble employer, Arnolfini (Fernando Hilbeck), after helping him retake his city. Martin and his crew swear revenge, and soon enough they seize a wagon carrying Arnolfini’s son’s betrothed, the virginal-yet-wily Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
Martin abducts her, rapes her (a scene that has aged with extreme discomfort), and drags her into his life of pillaging and plague. Agnes, for reasons either psychological or simply poorly written, shifts allegiance and begins to manipulate Martin and his band for her own survival. Meanwhile, Arnolfini’s son, Steven (Tom Burlinson), launches a rescue mission and attempts to reclaim both his honor and his bride.
What ensues is a muddled tale of shifting loyalties, pestilence, grotesque violence, and sexual power plays that tries to say something about the savagery of man and the chaos of history but never settles on a coherent point of view.
RUTGER HAUER: WASTED CHARISMA
Rutger Hauer, no stranger to playing men of questionable ethics, gives Martin a mix of swagger, menace, and strangely boyish charm. It would be a compelling performance if the script allowed him any growth or complexity. Instead, Martin is all appetite—for violence, food, and women—and the film seems both fascinated and repulsed by him.
Hauer deserved a more layered character. He’s saddled with one-note brutality that makes it hard to root for or against him. By the time the film tries to elicit sympathy for Martin, it feels dishonest. You can only behead so many innocent townsfolk before audience empathy dries up.
JENNIFER JASON LEIGH: THE FILM’S MOST COMPLICATED, AND TROUBLING, FIGURE
Jennifer Jason Leigh, playing Agnes, is probably the most interesting presence in Flesh+Blood, even if the film doesn’t always know what to do with her. She’s thrown into a traumatic situation and, instead of becoming a damsel in distress, becomes a cunning survivor. One moment she’s scheming; the next she’s seducing; the next she’s screaming in horror.
But the film’s treatment of her is inconsistent and often disturbing. Her rape by Martin is depicted in a way that blurs lines between violence and eroticism, a move that was controversial at the time and is downright repugnant now. The fact that she later appears to fall for Martin is either an unintentional commentary on Stockholm Syndrome or just bad, tone-deaf writing. Either way, Leigh is committed, but the film doesn’t do her any favors.
TOM BURLINSON: FORGETTABLE FOIL
Tom Burlinson, as the noble Steven, is tasked with being the audience’s moral anchor. He’s educated, idealistic, and utterly boring. The character never evolves beyond the archetype of the soft noble trying to survive in a harsh world. His rivalry with Martin never builds much tension, and his romance with Agnes is both undercooked and emotionally flat.
Burlinson doesn’t do a bad job, but he’s clearly outmatched by the intensity of Hauer and Leigh. In a film that needs a strong moral center to counterbalance the chaos, Steven is too passive and too vanilla.
THEMES: HISTORY AS HELLSCAPE
Verhoeven clearly wants to say something about the brutality of medieval life. There’s no romance here, no chivalry, no honor. Instead, we get a world where plague corpses hang from trees, dogs eat babies, and the church offers little more than superstition and hypocrisy.
It’s a vision that could work, but the film relishes the filth more than it interrogates it. There are hints of deeper ideas—the clash between science and religion, the futility of ideals in the face of survival—but they get buried under entrails and screaming. The film doesn’t challenge the audience as much as it batters them into submission.
DIRECTION AND STYLE: STRIKING, BUT SHALLOW
Visually, Flesh+Blood is sometimes impressive. The sets are gritty, the costumes feel lived-in, and the cinematography captures the chaos and carnage with flair. The battles are muddy and confusing, which fits the tone even if they lack coherence.
Verhoeven has a gift for staging chaos, and he brings an operatic intensity to even the quieter scenes. But he’s also a provocateur who often mistakes shock for insight. The film wants to be both serious and pulpy, but ends up being neither convincingly. Unlike his later American work, which balances absurdity with commentary, Flesh+Blood just wallows.
PACING AND STRUCTURE: AIMLESS VIOLENCE
The film is long and yet feels incomplete. Characters disappear for long stretches. Subplots (like the plague or religious iconography) are introduced and then dropped. There’s no strong arc to guide the viewer. Instead, the film stumbles from scene to scene, throwing sex and violence at the wall and hoping something sticks.
Tension rises and falls without rhythm. There’s no clear climax. When the final confrontation comes, it feels more like the film is exhausted rather than resolved. It’s a movie that fizzles out instead of building toward anything meaningful.
SUPPORTING CAST: MEAT FOR THE MILL
The rest of Martin’s gang is comprised of leering, grotesque caricatures. They drink, rape, steal, and die. There’s little differentiation between them, and while they help create the film’s nihilistic atmosphere, they aren’t given enough personality to become compelling. They exist mostly to show how far Martin has fallen—or how far he’s always been.
SCORE AND SOUND: MOOD WITHOUT MOMENTUM
Basil Poledouris delivers a score that occasionally hints at grandeur but is largely forgettable. The music doesn’t elevate the action or underscore the emotion the way a more ambitious score might have. In a movie this bleak, a memorable soundtrack could have provided contrast or commentary. Instead, it becomes another missed opportunity.
REPRESENTATION AND MODERN CONTEXT: A PROBLEMATIC RELIC
Flesh+Blood is a hard film to defend today. Its approach to sexual violence is especially problematic. The rape of Agnes is treated ambiguously, and the film never reckons with its implications. Instead of confronting the trauma, it uses it as a plot device. Even in 1985, this was pushing the edge of acceptability. Today, it reads as grotesquely out of touch.
The women in the film are either victims, manipulators, or symbols. There are no complex female characters outside of Agnes, and even she is ultimately a cipher. The male characters are no better—savage or spineless, with no room in between.
LEGACY: A FOOTNOTE IN VERHOEVEN’S CAREER
Flesh+Blood is an anomaly in Verhoeven’s filmography. It was his first English-language film and his attempt to break into the American market. While it shows flashes of the provocative style that would later make him famous, it lacks the satirical edge and narrative precision of Starship Troopers or Basic Instinct.
The film has developed a minor cult following among fans of historical fiction and extreme cinema, but it remains one of Verhoeven’s lesser efforts. It’s more a curiosity than a classic—a film you watch once out of fascination, then quickly file away.
CONCLUSION: A CRUDE, BLOODY, FORGETTABLE AFFAIR
Flesh+Blood is a film with ambition but no focus, style but no substance, brutality but no meaning. It wants to be a deconstruction of medieval myths, but it never builds anything worth tearing down. Verhoeven’s instincts as a provocateur are on full display, but they aren’t yet refined.
There are moments of interest—a performance from Jennifer Jason Leigh that almost works, a few striking visual compositions, the seed of a good idea about survival and morality—but they’re lost in the noise. It’s a film of mud, blood, and confusion.
FINAL SCORE: 4.5/10 — A grim curiosity piece, worth watching once for Verhoeven completists or fans of medieval grit, but hard to recommend to anyone else.
