Flesh + Blood (1985)

This epic, sprawling medieval adventure starring Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh is like a one of a kind, terrific, brutal, and audacious warmhearted tale with warranted flesh and blood. Jennifer Jason Leigh is as sweet, as pretty, as gorgeous as they come. Hauer and Leigh give epic+sprawling portrayals! I really love Jennifer's epic sprawl in Flesh+Blood! A 6.9! I love this movie. An 8 in my book. JJL is like a sweet feast! I love her. She's got the goods.

Plot: A medieval saga of a band of mercenaries who are pledged to exact revenge on an Italian noble lord who doesn't live up to his promise.Flesh+Blood is set in early 1500s when Black Death has just begun spreading its claws in Italy. There is no law & order left in the country side -- murder, rape, loot are common occurrence.Flesh+Blood (1985) An Italian noble Arnolfini (Fernando Hilbeck) hires a band of mercenaries and farmers-turned-soldier to win back his city lost to a coup, while away. Arnofilni promises the mercenaries a day's plunder in the city but once victorious he makes his commander-in-chief Hawkwood (Jack Thompson) drive them out of the city without food, water, or weapons.Mercenaries have no shelter and are devastated. Their leader Martin (Rutger Hauer)--a brave, carefree and eccentric man soon loses his infant son too. While digging the grave for his dead son, Martin unearths a wooden statue of Saint Martin of Tours – a saint with a sword. The mercenaries' priest proclaims it as a sign from God and Martin takes up the sword to lead them.They soon kidnap Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the virgin betrothed of the Arnofilni's son Steven (Tom Burlinson). To avoid gang-rape, Agnes initially fakes love for Martin and uses her—recently come to fore—sexuality to manipulate him but soon falls for him.Arnofilni was fatally wounded by mercenaries and Hawkwood has retired. Steven—highly intellectual but not a soldier—enforces Hawkwood to come out of retirement. Together they siege the castle mercenaries are using as a hideout. During the siege Hawkwood is infected by the bubonic plague--the Black Death and Steven has been captured by mercenaries. Hawkwood uses an unorthodox medical technique, mentioned by Steven, to cure himself. Once fit, he decides to bring in more troops but flings pieces of a diseased dog into the castle before leaving.Steven flings one piece to water well and Agnes sees him doing so. She decides to keep it to herself as she still loves Steven. At breakfast most of the mercenaries are soon infected by poisoned water, though when Martin attempts to drink; Agnes slaps the cup away from his hands.Now mercenaries are dying and fleeing the castle. Soon Hawkwood and Arnolfini, who has recovered from his wound, return with an army to enrage the castle. Agnes and Steven leave the castle and some of the surviving mercenaries pledge fealty to Arnofilni.Martin is assumed dead, Agnes and Steven are hugging each other; at the same time Agnes notices Martin slipping out of the castle with some plunder in his sack, which she keeps mum about.Acting is not a strong point of the movie, it is rather mediocre. But it is very much possible director wanted it to be so, as there is much focus on skin and gore.The strong points of the movie are its blackish humor and young Jennifer Jason Leigh – who manages to look pretty, and at the same time hell-bent sexy! Take her out and movie is kaput. There is plenty of blood-gore and full frontal nudity which blends in well with the scenario and is done artistically, well, more like need of the hour! A must watch if you enjoy a middle age saga.7.0/10

A band of medieval mercenaries take revenge on a noble lord who decides not to pay them by kidnapping the betrothed of the noble's son.As the plague and warfare cut a swathe of destruction throughout the land, the mercenaries hole up in a castle and await their fate...The film can be very confusing and downright odd at times. One moment it's serious and quite depressing, the next, Hauer has you laughing out loud from his facial gestures and one liners.But Verhoevens first American movie is just what you would expect from the auteur. We have violence aplenty, nudity for no good reason, and as much of Jennifer Jason Leighs bare body anyone could care for.And she really steals the film, playing a very nasty and downright near schizophrenic character who may or may not care for either of the men her life.But it wouldn't be a hard decision to make though thanks to the portrayals. In one instance, Hauer comes across as the caring one of the two men, full of warmth and loyalty to his friends and to her.And we have the other guy, who looks like a young Simon Le Bon, and spends the majority of the film whining about this and that, and this becomes very difficult for the viewer as we are supposed to empathise for this spoilt waste of space.There are many references to religion, and even in one scene, we see Hauer and a halo around his head, something that crops up in a lot of the directors movies.There are a few standout scenes, and the film has a very cold and murky feel to it, but it's a great Hollywood debut and a great performance from Hauer who is as iconic as ever, and a lovely sinister performance from Leigh.

Shock-value? No, this movie was all shock and no value. It was a degenerate effort. Certain scenes are truly disturbing (in a bad way). By mid-way through you'll feel dirty. Skip it – You'll be the better for not having seen this. And don't let any child see it anymore than you'd show them snuff-pornography (which in a sense this is) – how this escaped an NC17-rating is beyond me.This deserves repeating: "Flesh+Blood is an unpleasant movie – deliberately so, I think. The point seems to be the sordidness of it all. [...] The point is less clever than it first seems – it only really exists in the wake of a long tradition of Romantic ideals. This movie is a reaction to artistic clichés of various sorts, in other words, but it could only really exist in the wake of these same clichés: it doesn't have a life of its own, it doesn't make much sense apart from the sentiments it mocks. Movies like FLESH + BLOOD are a lot thinner than they first look: they're the rough equivalent of doing HAMLET naked. Once you get past the shock value, there's not a lot here." {originally written by dj_bassett from Philadelphia}.The avant-garde aiming to shock and undermine bourgeois ideals. Is that "art"? This movie deserves to be seen about as much as the "piss-christ" deserves to be flocked to in museums worldwide. If you're a great fan of the latter, by all means see the former, it'll be in your taste. Otherwise, stay away.