Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Paul Verhoeven's first movie outside of his native Holland is a typically excessive tale of man reduced to his lowest instinct. The medieval setting is just right for Verhoeven to insert his graphic violence and sexuality into a typical revenge-type plot packed with action. Indeed, Verhoeven's reliance on the extreme actually works in this movie's favour as things were indeed a lot less civilised than in our times. In most mainstream period films they usually tend to gloss over this fact, sometimes going so far as to drop an obviously modern society into a medieval setting without any of the barbarism prevalent at the time. Verhoeven's eye for period detail makes this movie a lot of fun and substantially different from the rest.Amid the wealth of explosive battle scenes central themes of revenge (Hauer's against the king, Burlinson's against Hauer) are explored along with sexuality and death. This movie pulls no punches in depicting a cruel world in which babies are likely to die at birth and be buried in a beer barrel. In the second half, the action's centred around a small castle in which Hauer and his men are surrounded by enemy troops; it is here that the ugly spectre of plague makes an appearance to heighten the drama.The cast is a good one, with genre staple Rutger Hauer excelling as the mercenary leader anti-hero who you still end up rooting for despite his brutality. A very young-looking Jennifer Jason Leigh is pretty good as the feisty princess used to getting things her own way, and likewise Tom Burlinson succeeds in his turn as the jilted suitor determined to regain his bride. Ronald Lacey turns up in one of his better latter-day roles as a mad, hairy preacher who enjoys whipping himself when he sins. Genre icon Brion James also has fun as Hauer's friend.While the finale might be predictably fiery, there are enough unexpected plot twists and turns to keep things interesting and the use of the plague as a plot device is a good one; they don't make enough plague films these days, that's for sure. The authentic Spanish locations add to the visual impact, and altogether this film has a gritty, realistic look to it which heightens the action. While not as big-budget or exciting as Verhoeven's later sci-fi epics, FLESH & BLOOD has enough exploitation material to satisfy even the most jaded of fans and is worth a watch for fans of the director's work.

Shock-value? No, this movie was all shock and no value. It was a degenerate effort. Certain scenes are truly disturbing (in a bad way). By mid-way through you'll feel dirty. Skip it – You'll be the better for not having seen this. And don't let any child see it anymore than you'd show them snuff-pornography (which in a sense this is) – how this escaped an NC17-rating is beyond me.This deserves repeating: "Flesh+Blood is an unpleasant movie – deliberately so, I think. The point seems to be the sordidness of it all. [...] The point is less clever than it first seems – it only really exists in the wake of a long tradition of Romantic ideals. This movie is a reaction to artistic clichés of various sorts, in other words, but it could only really exist in the wake of these same clichés: it doesn't have a life of its own, it doesn't make much sense apart from the sentiments it mocks. Movies like FLESH + BLOOD are a lot thinner than they first look: they're the rough equivalent of doing HAMLET naked. Once you get past the shock value, there's not a lot here." {originally written by dj_bassett from Philadelphia}.The avant-garde aiming to shock and undermine bourgeois ideals. Is that "art"? This movie deserves to be seen about as much as the "piss-christ" deserves to be flocked to in museums worldwide. If you're a great fan of the latter, by all means see the former, it'll be in your taste. Otherwise, stay away.

Am about 2/3ds through this film because of Paul Vanderhoeven. It's been a real slog--horrible script, beyond the worst clichés--stupidity isn't the word. Phony 16thC music out of a 40's Robin Hood movie doesn't help. Even Rutger Hauer looks uncomfortable. Did Vanderhoeven plan to do this as campy satire of the genre and then at the last minute cable the scenes together as "serious"? I'll try to get through the rest, but it's just a big yawn; plot(?), there isn't any. So many spears through chests, as dramatic as watching grasshoppers eat grass. There are a few laughs in this mess, imagining it as satire, but then it just keeps going, more grass and grasshoppers. I was waiting for a tried and true boiling oil over the castle ramparts to "the bad guys"; maybe it's yet to come; maybe a few cocktails will help. The one plus are Jennifer Jason Leigh's breasts.

Out of the middle ages and onto the big screen....then hopefully into the trash. Flesh and Blood is yet another film so bad that I didn't finish it and therefore should probably not be reviewing, but I must. Everybody, stay away.Set in Feudal Holland, A sleazy lord, promises his mercenaries treasure and festivity if they help him retake the castle he lost. After the brutal battle, they have victory, but the lord then denies his promise, forces his men to drop their arms, and abandon the premises. Rutger Hauer, Plays Martin, your basic hansom young warrior, who with the help of some of his fellow mercenaries, including a cardinal, decide it's payback time. His plans starts with abducting of The fiancée of the evil dukes young son. She is taken before she and her company reach the castle, In order to avoid gang rape, she pledges her alliance to Martin that night. that is as far as I got.There are two reasons why I could not continue. While the setting looks very medieval, dirty and crummy, not glamorous and luxurious, not for a moment does this feel like the feudal middle ages. The dialog is poorly scripted and some of it is just too contemporary, especially Hauer's. In a closely related matter, my second problem with Flesh and Blood is terrible acting. No body is believable, a couple of character come close but their roles are secondary, it is really the two leads who spoil the picture, Hauer and Leigh go together like peanut butter and mustard. You do not need to make it any further than I did to know that Flesh and Blood is a turkey, There is no History, no Drama, No emotion, and despite a couple of disguise attempts there is no originality either. I conclude with this hypothetical question, What does it take to make a decent, realistic Medieval movie?