Starship Troopers and a general reconsideration of Paul Verhoeven

I admit, I had pretty much dismissed Paul Verhoeven, widely known as a maker of trash. He wasn’t always considered as such, though. He’d had a long and successful career in his native Netherlands already when he went Hollywood. The movie that put Verhoeven on the map was Robocop, a pretty good movie that spawned not-so-good sequels, a tv series, videogames… it was followed by the mostly well-received Schwarzenegger vehicle Total Recall, and his most successful and controversial movie, Basic Instinct. Showgirls was widely panned, but not as much as Hollow Man, which almost killed his Hollywood career. Critics love to trash his work, myself included, seeing his fondness for overblown violence and smut as misogynistic, exploitative spectacle.

However, I was surprised to learn that many of his movies had gone on to find a cult following. Showgirls, for instance, has become a classic of Gay Camp. Then recently, I saw The Fourth Man, and was honestly surprised! As Verhoeven’s last movie made in Holland before he went to America, it was very stylishly edited, twisting and compelling. I was hooked! I could seen, then, that I had to re-evaluate my views of Verhoeven.

Joe wanted to see Starship Troopers, as friends had been telling him it was actually pretty good. When it first came out, there was a lot said about it being an ode to Nazism, which had been enough to turn me off of it. But of course, it’s more complex than that. We watched it last week, and it turned out to confound all my expectations, not a small feat indeed. I had thought it would be a straight-up, cheesy kind of space-action flick with totaliarian aesthetics, but it was actually rather Disney-esque in its “wholesome” and cartoony characters and sets (though not so Disney-esque in its gore and skin quota). It was overblown, overacted, and completely clichéd… and these were its good points! It was so very obviously all these things that it became something else, a blackly funny poke at action movie heroics and rabid patriotism. And interestingly, sexism has been eradicated, and the army is entirely co-ed, right down to the showers (Verhoeven's not one to miss an opportunity for wet, glistening flesh).

On the other hand, the satire doesn’t get more clever than this, and so it gets a little boring after a while. I got to dislike the characters more and more, and by the end of the film, had mostly contempt for them, and while this may be a desired effect, it wasn’t fun spending time with them. Or perhaps I’m reading the intent completely wrong, and I was actually supposed to like and identify with these characters! But that clearly didn’t work out either. So I wouldn’t call Starship Troopers a really good film, but it’s certainly not to be dismissed.

These last two movies have prompted me to reconsider Verhoeven completely. I’m not saying that I suddenly see Verhoeven’s films as “high art” (if the line dividing high and low even exists anymore). I do think, however, that his gung-ho approach to movie-making is more subversive than I previously gave him credit for. He takes clichés of sex and violence and amps them up to levels that are crassly titillating (ahem), then just absurd and funny. We’re planning to watch his new film, The Black Book, his first Dutch film since The Fourth Man. I also want to see Soldier of Orange from his earlier Dutch period, which comes highly recommended as one of the best Dutch films ever. And hey, I might actually even rent Showgirls again! I see now why it’s become a camp classic. Verhoeven is way more fun than any of the other action cheesemongers in Hollywood put together.