Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Just perfect...

Absolutely brilliant

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Story about three guys who are 19 or 20--Hans (Maarten Spanjer), Rien (Hans von Tongeren) and Eef (Toon Agterberg). They live in a small industrial town in Holland. They have nothing in common except for their love of motocross. Then sexy Fientje (Renee Soutendijk) moves to town and makes a play for each of them thinking they have (or will have) plenty of money and she can live off them.Great movie. It is vulgar and VERY sexually graphic--there's plenty of sex talk, full frontal shots of women AND men, simulated sex, a gay rape scene and a hardcore gay sex scene. Still they are all needed for the story and to understand the motivations of the guys. It's well-directed by Paul Verhoeven, has a pulsating soundtrack, moves quickly and has good acting--especially by Soutendijk and Agterberg. It has tragic and hopeful endings for all the guys done in a realistic and truthful manner. Also Rutger Hauer has a small role as a conceited motocross champion.Verhoeven (who also wrote the script) was attacked for this film. It was called anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-cripple and way too sexually explicit (I do wonder how he got some of the actors to agree to perform in some of these scenes--especially the gay rape). He only made one more film in Holland ("The 4th Man") before coming to Hollywood and turning out one blockbuster after another. This was barely shown in the US and was put on cable in a horribly cut R rated print with dubbing! This review is based on the subtitled directors cut. This film may be way too graphic for some viewers but I was fascinated through the whole thing. Recommended.

Spetters in dutch means roughly the plural form of splash.De spetters van water kwamen terecht op de tafel.The splash of water came directly on the table.It is also very similar to the English word splatter.Dutch and English are both germanic languages so there are many similarwords.This movie is unique in that it starred Rutger Hauer, Jeroen Krabbe and was directed by Paul Verhoeven, later of Basic Instinct fame and unfortunately also Show Girls. These actors and director have gone back and forth and have done work in Holland and also here in America. Jeroen Krabbe was in The Fugitive and Prince of Tides with Barbra Streisand.

I tried to be open minded, but basically, there are but three reasons to see this film: 1.) for a time-capsule view of political incorrectness, 2.) to see how much less sexually liberated American movies are (and Americans in general), and 3.) to see men get equal time (if not more time) in the full-frontal nudity department. Otherwise, it's hard to find anything redeeming about this. This film goes almost as far as the French film, "Romance", yet it was made two decades earlier. The difference is, "Romance" actually wrapped an interesting story around its explicitness, with more compelling characters and greater emotional depth. At the same time, this movie isn't bad enough to be "so bad it's good" either. Plus you've got the patented Verhoven too-much-testosterone curse, plus really unlikable characters, except maybe one. As usual, women's roles here are thankless, and the main female character seems to feel the only way she can get ahead is with a man she's boffing. This film also deals with gay-bashing and homosexuality as a subplot but it does not handle it sensitively (not surprisingly). An ultimately unpleasant viewing experience, I kinda felt sorry for the actors who appeared in it (one of whom later committed suicide--not to imply it was because of this film). (P.S. There's nothing any more brutal here than what was in "The Accused.")

As the eighties are revisited this movie is a drama of one of a kind. What seems to be humor is drama, fast and short sentenced. A delayed experience from the seventies worked out over the beginning of the eighties, a time where economic situation wasn't that good. Fast dialogue, sex as it might actually happen, unromanced, pretty bad. The last shot made it all clear, a moment where all characters go there way, then the camera pans to a view where you actually see the little village laying in front of the skyline of Rotterdam.The name Spetters actually means somtjing like "Foxy laidys" maiby als so "Drops of some kind"..... The god/jesus thing in this movie is a bersonal thing of Paul Verhoeven, because he tougth at some time in his live that he was jesus, he als wan't to make a movie about jesus... This will never heppen because he wil never get it budgetet.. Go en enjoi, don't watch it with people that are not a movie nutt because the will don't understaint it.