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| A man seems caught in a nightmarish situation with a sinister, cross-wearing lady on this great poster for Paul Verhoeven's The Fourth Man |
A predominantly gay writer meets a woman at a Q&A session, who becomes his girlfriend. But he then starts to learn about her former men and their unenviable fates, while he suffers frightening dreams.
The Fourth Man is written by Gerard Soeteman (Floris (2004)), based on the same-titled 1981 novel by Gerard Reve (De Avonden/The Evenings (1947)), and directed by great Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (Spetters (1980)).
Verhoeven's grip on the sex thriller is already well-developed here in this highly cinematic and exciting film, which is formed around a very simple story. Jeroen Krabbé (Fogbound (2002)) is outstanding as the pitiful, often amusing rascal hero.
I love all the coincidences and implausibilities in the plot, which leaps forward with a great visual energy, (cinematography by Jan de Bont (Growing Pains (1984))), special effects and a wealth of skin and naughty scenes.
Verhoeven's direction is strong and distinctive. SPOILER I have a reservation about the grave chamber scene; in it our hero should reasonably first have sex with the guy of his desire there, before surrendering to the grip of anxiety, - this is essentially a psychological error in the script.
The film is like a Freudian nightmare, one left wide open for interpretation. The Fourth Man is a very attractive piece of work, you are likely to want to see more than once.
Related posts:
Paul Verhoeven: Top 10: Best cop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Basic Instinct (1992) or, Irresistable Desire!
Listen to some of Loek Dikker's score from the film here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[The Fourth Man was released 24 March (Netherlands) and runs 102 minutes. Shooting took place in the Holland, including Amsterdam. Verhoeven has said of the film: "The Fourth Man has to do with my vision of religion. In my opinion, Christianity is nothing more than one of many interpretations of reality, neither more nor less. Ideally, it would be nice to believe that there is a God somewhere out there, but it looks to me as if the whole Christian religion is a major symptom of schizophrenia in half the world's population: civilizations scrambling to rationalize their chaotic existence. Subsequently, Christianity has a tendency to look like magic or the occult. And I liked that ambiguity, because I wanted my audience to take something home with them. I wanted them to wonder about what religion really is. Remember, that Christianity is a religion grounded in one of the most violent acts of murder, the crucifixion. Otherwise, religion wouldn't have had any kind of impact. With regard to the irony of the violence, much of that probably comes from my childhood experiences during and immediately following the Second World War. In fact, if it hadn't been for the German occupation and then the American occupation, I would have never been a filmmaker." The film's box office take is unknown; it sold 274k tickets in production country Holland, less than Verhoeven's earlier hits, and it was his last film in his native country. It won a National Board of Review award and was chosen as Holland's Oscar entry of the year but wasn't nominated. It was remade as The Good Thief (2002). Verhoeven considered his 4th Hollywood movie Basic Instinct (1992) a 'spiritual prequel' to The Fourth Man. Verhoeven returned with Flesh+Blood (1985). Krabbé returned in 4 TV credits before theatrically in Turtle Diary (1985); Renée Soutendijk (Suspiria (2018)) returned in An Bloem (1983). 6,355 IMDb users have given The Fourth Man a 7.3/10 average rating.]
What do you think of The Fourth Man?
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