A look at the Best, the Worst, and the most Different (for better or worse) of the delirious and deviant Dutch director’s dossier.
Best
Total Recall (1990)
Teaming a man who was steadily carving out a niche as a purveyor of violent mayhem with the actor responsible for the largest body count in Hollywood was a truly inspired move. Verhoeven gleefully lingers on bullet-ridden corpses, accentuates each *crack* as Arnie’s Douglas Quaid/Hauser breaks necks and spines, and turns the legend that is Michael Ironside into a double amputee; meanwhile, he satisfies his lust for random flesh with a three-breasted Martian prostitute. There’s not really much one can add to that (except to say that the Colin Farrell remake has some living up to do).
Robocop (1987)
Atheist Verhoeven delivers a Christ analogy that’s every bit as brutal as Mel Gibson’s 2004 literal re-telling. The broad comedy of the mock TV ads sits alongside digs at '80s yuppie excesses and is fused to some of the nastiest onscreen villainy in mainstream cinema: witness the cruel delight sleazoid crime lord Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) and his gang take in torturing rookie cop Alex Murphy (a solid Peter Weller), who is then resurrected to generate positive PR for the heartless corporate that owns near-future ‘New’ Detroit’s privitised police force. All the staples from Verhoeven’s Dutch movies are on show in his US debut: satire of authority; ultra-violence; religious and fascist symbolism; nudity.
Starship Troopers (1997)
No other popcorn movie is as simultaneously gung-ho and cunningly subversive as this gloriously violent interstellar caper. Edward Neumeier takes Robert A. Heinlein’s straight-laced source novel and cranks up the military satire to eleven, portraying a future society that uses xenophobic propaganda to recruit young square-jawed Aryan warriors to fight unprovoked against a dehumanised foe (they’re only insects – let’s squish ‘em!), whilst Verhoeven – who grew up in occupied Holland during World War II – delights in bombarding the viewer with not-so-subtle Nazi imagery like grey Gestapo-style uniforms with long leather jackets and Eagle motifs. And how can you argue with lines like “Shoot a nuke down a bug hole, you got a lot of dead bugs”?
Basic Instinct (1992)
Pauly V really hit his stride with this extremely trashy and enjoyable guilty pleasure that didn’t do the careers of him, screenwriter Joe Eszerthas or star Sharon Stone much harm at all. It’s taken its fair share of flack over the years and has dated poorly (few flicks scream the '90s quite as loudly), but the fact is it’s a thriller that can legitimately be dubbed ‘Hitchcockian’: icy blonde, morally conflicted protagonist, simmering tension, San Francisco setting, Jerry Goldsmith’s Bernard Herrmann-esque score – and it contains a level of explicit sleaze that the pervy old master would have loved to have gotten away with in his time.
Worst
Showgirls (1995)
After the phenomenal success of Basic Instinct, Verhoeven could do pretty much what he wanted. He chose to re-team with Eszerthas for this utterly awful tale of a small town girl trying to make it as a Las Vegas stripper. Kind of like All about Eve with nipple tassels, Showgirls manages to have some of the worst acting (Elizabeth Berkley), dialogue (“You have great tits.” “Thank you.” “I like nice tits, how about you?” “I like having nice tits.”), sex (the swimming pool scene, where Berkley flaps about like a salmon whilst straddling an embarrassed-looking Kyle MacLachlan), and haircuts (MacLachlan again) ever commited to screen. It has a cult status for being so-bad-it’s-good, but that doesn’t mean it wasn't bad in the first place.
Different
Hollow Man (2000)
A bland flick that could have been directed by anyone, our man downplays his usual bombastic style and produces a feature that is sorely lacking in Verhoeven trademarks: no excessive nudity, no corporate satire, only moderate violence. Kevin Bacon enjoys himself in the obnoxious lead role and those invisibility special effects are pretty impressive, but the overall feeling is of a hired hand directing with one eye on the mortgage repayments. Hollow indeed.
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