punishmentpark Paul Verhoeven's Hollywood debut (as I thought at times when watching this)? No, but it's all in English. Not English English, but with the (attempted?) American accent, and a lot of corny lines which do make it sound so. But there's way too much swearing and nudity for Hollywood here, anyway. Especially the young Jennifer Jason Leigh made an indelible impression on me when I watched this at a relatively early age, and she alone makes this new viewing worth my while.The story has loads of interesting elements and themes going on (connecting the setting of his very early work 'Floris' with themes of his more recent 'Zwartboek'), but it hardly ever comes together - if at all. The trivia here on IMDb offer some insight into why things (also) went wrong, but ultimately, there is no true excuse for delivering such a poor piece of writing for the screen.If there had been plenty of enjoyable action scenes to help forget some of those flaws, I'd be able to give out some extra points, but in that area as well, things hardly ever get impressive.The almost constantly screaming and misbehaving characters (and overacting actors) are pretty annoying on top of all that, so that only leaves lots of interesting basic ideas, some pretty steamy soft porn with beautiful Jennifer, some very nice scenery shots scenes and... the end.3 out of 10.

SnoopyStyle It's 1501 Western Europe. Martin (Rutger Hauer) leads a group of veteran mercenaries. Arnolfini promises them 24 hours of looting but he recants on his promise. Arnolfini's son Steven (Tom Burlinson) is engaged to Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Their caravan is attacked by Martin and Agnes is taken. Steven struggles to rescue her.Paul Verhoeven gives us lots of sex and violence in this medieval drama. It has since become his signature move. It's over the top nature was only restrained by his budget. Of course, Verhoeven gets people to walk around naked especially Jennifer. This could be categorized as cheese. Mind you, it's extremely high class expensive cheese. The humor can be very broad. Some of the acting is very big. All of it very memorable. The best part may be the sexual relationships that goes on in this movie. Who seduces who is maybe the most compelling question. The love triangle looks different depending on which side you're coming from. It's both compelling and a fun guilty pleasure.

Charles Herold (cherold) I watched this movie because it stars two brilliant actors, Hauer and Leigh, but I only made it a third of the way through before I gave up on the endeavor.I see a lot of people here are saying, sure, it's unpleasant, but that's realistic for the middle ages. But if there's one thing I wouldn't accuse this movie of, it's realism. It's a pretty cheesy blood and guts war tale that isn't that different from ones they were making in the 1950s except it's nastier. As for life being more unpleasant in the middle ages, well, certainly life was hard, there were less creature comforts, people died younger, but still, people are people, and this movie chooses to portray really unpleasant ones, and I suspect if were were able to visit the middle ages we would find that, just like now, there were a mix of pleasant and unpleasant folk.The movie is also rather dull. The script is poorly written, the characters are cardboard.Terrible, terrible movie.

davetree 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.