The Fourth Man
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Movie Reviews of The Fourth Man
Movie Review: Signs and visions of looming doom...
Summary: 4 Stars
Gerard Reve (Jeroen Krabbé) is a renowned novelist and he is invited to Vlissingen's Literary Society to give a speech about his writings. On Gerard's travel from Amsterdam to Vlissingen, a Dutch seaside town, he is provided several mysterious warnings that are related to his Catholic beliefs. However, Gerard disregards the signs and spends the night with Christine Halsslag (Renée Soutendijk), the treasurer of the Literary Society. Christine invites Gerard to reside in her home, which Gerard accepts as he has an alternative motive. Gerard stays in Christine's house because he is attracted to her boyfriend from Cologne who is coming to visit and wants to meet him. As Gerard remains in Vlissingen the secular warning sings continue to haunt him. The question is why are these frightful visions and signs returning to him. Verhoeven creates a suspenseful story as it is built up around some moral taboo's and Catholicism, which are entangled in Gerard's desires and wishes. The 4th Man leads the audience into a spiraling build up of apprehension as the visions lead Gerard closer to the key behind the signs, which offers the audience a thrilling cinematic experience.Movie Review: Verhoeven's exercise in suspense thriller and excess
Summary: 4 Stars
Paul Verhoeven remains an interesting director who treads between art and commercialism with a European style of excess without alienating the audiences (unlike Godard!) His early Dutch films remain a fascinating watch.
The Fourth Man is a straigh forward suspense thriller that somehow acts as a prelude to his later femme fatale genre piece, Basic Instinct. Full of tongue in cheek metaphors ranging from black widow spiders and its preys, popped out eyeball and even the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ!
Verhoeven is always a pleasure to listen to when it comes to commentaries in his films. Unpretentious, full of anecdotes and information into the making of his films.
Movie Review: Verhoeven's Original Blond With a Taste for Blood
Summary: 3 Stars
For me this film held the most interest in the respect that it was early Paul Verhoeven, something I had never seen before. This was a quality experience that gave insight into his later work and created more curiosity for me about his earlier work. It does have a little trouble taking flight at the beginning, but once it does it provides the viewers with a worthwhile script and an intriguing ending. The story follows Gerard as he travels by train to give a literary speech. Once in the new town he hits it off with a good looking blond named Christine who has femme fatale written all over her. If only our hero had had the opportunity to see "Basic Instinct" before this journey of his perhaps he would have used more common sense. This controversial author with a focus on death gives in to her sexual demands even though he is quite clearly a homosexual. He decides to stay in her house for a few more days as a sort of live in sex toy. This leads to something of a problem as his snooping ways get the best of him and he soon discovers that Christine has been married three previous times. Plus, all of her exes have died and she has some very suspicious videos of them immediately before their deaths. Paranoia grows on top of paranoia in his mind after he concludes (rightfully) that all of her previous beaus have passed. I should point out that this whole Sherlock Holmes thing he is doing is not just out of innocent curiosity. No, you see, it is all part of a master plan to get close to Christine's other lover who Gerard has a thing for. . .real bad.
The thing that pushed this film over the edge from an OK one to a good one is the ending. It is left up to you to decide the truth about the situation. This is a tricky device to use as nobody really wants to spend two hours just to be left in the dark. The title refers to Gerard's theory that Christine plans on killing four men, and by the end of the film a fourth man connected to her has died. But is he truly the 4th Man? Or is it all part of a terrible run of luck for her? What about the film reels he finds? And what about the final death which certainly looks orchestrated by nobody other than fate. There are other questions to be found here as well. The whole film has a nice surreal quality to it. The dream sequences are disturbing and morbid. Many of them foretell the future, but we of course don't know it at the time. I also liked the way it swam in its own delicious sleaze. For instance, near the end Gerard and his object of lust find themselves in a tomb on the verge of sex. But it's not just any tomb, it is the tomb of Christine's three dead husbands. Oh please. Like they would really be buried together and like these two guys would just accidentally stumble in there for some recreational activities. I also liked the way they played with out perceptions of reality. We all see what we want to see. But Gerard is a drunk, Catholic writer, so he really sees what he wants to see. So I ask you, what did he see? Was he a crazed madman with no feel for truth or a perceptive onlooker who spoke the truth when nobody else dared to? ***1/4