BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

james1-494-826857 In today's world with so much to watch (including DVR's) my attention span is very short. This is one of those movies where not alot is really going on (i.e Drama) but the acting is so good you hang in their. The main guy can act his balls off. That's it for me everyone (other reviewers) else can give you what you're looking for in depth.

Mr_Ectoplasma Paul Verhoeven's earlier Dutch thriller follows a superstitious writer (Jeroen Krabbe) who meets an eccentric woman attending one of his public seminars and begins an affair with her; while staying at her home for an extended period, he is plagued with disturbing visions and incidents, and becomes infatuated with one of her other male lovers.Fans of Verhoeven's neo-noir classic "Basic Instinct" should find plenty of interest here, as the films cross paths in terms of some thematics and the cinematic aspect of the lover's triad, though "The Fourth Man" is actually a much better film in some ways. While not as remarkably violent as some of his other work, it is a solid and transfixing thriller that is as perturbing as it is engaging; as off putting as it is erotic. Verhoeven wears influences on his sleeve, clearly drawing on ye good old days of American Hollywood noir with spatterings of Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman for good taste. The touches of surrealism are prevalent enough to arrest the audience, but are still left in an inconspicuous enough territory to be debated and thought provoking. Never does the film edge into gaudiness, which is another remarkable feat here— the surrealist colorings are wholly immersed in the reality of the story, blending into an endless portrait of premonitions, fears, and paranoia that is still firmly anchored in a cohesive plot.Remarkable performances here from Jeroen Krabbé and Renée Soutendijk, as well as Thom Hoffman's understated performance as the object of Krabbé's intense sexual affections. Among a multitude of other things, the film is truly a pioneer of queer cinema, brazen in its depiction of male homosexuality and laden with surprisingly baffling religious, supernatural, and feminist themes that are difficult to decipher in spite of their obvious existence within.No less, "The Fourth Man" is one of the most transfixing thrillers of its time, brilliantly crafting the surreal alongside the darker aspects of film noir, all taken to understated extremes. While many people probably think of David Lynch as the first filmmaker to do this, you may be surprised to know that Paul Verhoeven was toying with similar elements back in Netherlands in the 1980s; while Lynch infamously took this to subconscious levels, Verhoeven rather leaves us somewhere in the middle— in a dream, or maybe in a nightmare. 9/10.

chaos-rampant Let's just not mince words about this, I think Verhoeven would prefer it this way. Because even though he intended this as a kind of farce set up for the critics, the thing has genuine appeal for most people.It is no longer dangerous as might have been felt to be at the time, no longer quite an insane stylistic bravura. Since then we've had Cronenberg and Lynch, who delved deeper and subverted more slyly. Since then Verhoeven has delivered more biting satires. And if you insist on some ironic appreciation, prior to this we had Polanski and the Italian giallo, where you could read the feverish psychosexual histrionics as your own campy rendition knowing that you were not simply playing at the hands of a smarmy filmmaker.So what is left is a kind of update on Les Diaboliques. The caveat: how much of the lurid sexual fantasy that we're caught into is being hallucinated by the imaginative writer and how much of it actually true. Old news for '83.Piled on top of that we have deliberately overcooked religious symbolism, synchronous overlaps from Hitchcock and noir, and the film world conspiring to assist the nightmare unfold as we dreamed it would.Of course all these things, as well as the many faces that Verhoeven has used to subvert America when he was finally invited over on the strength of this, the filmmaker employs as cruel whims he can lift and put back in place.It is a tight construct, proof of his penchant for cinema all else aside. The writer begins to imagine a narrative around him as soon as the camera is set on him, and centered around this woman holding it. From his end, he is conspiring from inside that narrative to manipulate for sex that escapes him. Of course he soon discovers that he is just another play actor at the hands of a cruel maker; it happens with the discovery of film footage shot by her, shot by Verhoeven in just the way to make us imagine along with this man more sinister plots around the pictures.Of course it's the whole idea that we're none the wiser by the end about the maker's intentions filming these bits. Verhoeven's farce is that where we zealously imagined depth and connection, there might be none outside our feverish ramblings to interpret.It's a fine film, but since then we've had Cronenberg and Lynch where this ploy is one of many on the nature of reality. This is styled to be oblique but is easy to read, with few rewards for doing so. It is sex with all the animated writhing but none of the passion that penetrates deep.

ardavan_sh2006 I always have been a great fan of Paul Verhoeven & i believe that "Basic Instinct" is the BEST erotic-thriller ever made( no matter what the others say, it's undoubtedly a masterpiece of the genre & time will enhance the judgments, i'm sure).And....this "the Fourth Man" is the best flick of Paul's "dutch" era.As it always has been said , it's a wonderful combination of Bergman(for its philosophical theme) & Hitchcock (for the kind of suspense it creates) , too.it has a compelling screenplay with a touch of surrealism. "the third man" (sorry, it's my other favorite,...Carol Reed always stays in my mind!).."the 4th man" also opened the gates of Hollywood for the dutch director.