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Flesh + Blood

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Netherlands, Spain, United States · 1985
2h 6m
Director Paul Verhoeven
Starring Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson, Jack Thompson
Genre Adventure, Drama

A band of medieval mercenaries takes revenge on a noble lord by kidnapping his betrothed son. As the black plague and violent warfare cut a swathe of destruction throughout the continent, the mercenaries hole up in a castle and await their fate.

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60

Time Out by

It's hamstrung by leaden dialogue and the motley international cast - Python and the Grail are never that far away - but it's admirably unsentimental and by no means stupid.

60

CineVue by Christopher Machell

Paul Verhoeven’s first English language film Flesh + Blood is bloody, cynical and unrefined, but indicative of his later satirical tendencies.

40

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

A medieval adventure-love saga in which all the cliches have been turned inside out. Instead of chivalry, the 1985 movie focuses on swinishness and brutality. Instead of love it offers lust and lechery; instead of heroism, pillage and murder. The "instead-ofs" go on and on, leaving us no one to root for and everything and everybody finally a turn-off. [10 July 1988, p.TV2]

67

The A.V. Club by Noel Murray

Though Flesh + Blood tells a terrific story, written by Verhoeven with his longtime collaborator Gerard Soeteman, the presentation is rough, and not just because the film is packed with gore and rape. Verhoeven doesn't believe in tasteful framing that implies nudity; he prefers the bare-assed variety, the kind that makes the body's frailty plain.

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