Review: The Fourth Man (1983)
“The Fourth Man” is one of controversial Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven’s (RoboCop, Basic Instinct, Showgirls) last movies before moving to America. It finds the director exploring a lot of his favorite pre-occupations: voyeurism, obsession, ambisexuality, and a possible blonde black widow. A writer (Jeroen Krabbe), struggling with hallicinations, alcoholism, and a relationship that seems to be souring, meets the widow in question, Christine, at a conference where he’s speaking. They hit it off, he’s not as interested as she, but then he stumbles upon a letter that implies she’s sleeping with a man he also yearns for. A few days later, he finds a few other things…
The film has an exceptional mood, it revels in that charged, erotic dread that is Verhoeven’s speciality. “The Fourth Man” is not quite as cruel as some of Verhoeven’s American work, there is a sympathy with the writer character, called Gerard (possibly a Verhoeven surrogate?) that surprised me. Where as Verhoeven’s American films are more explosive and blunt, “The Fourth Man” is dialed down, brooding, but still blackly funny. It’s neither a masterpiece (RoboCop) nor memorable as a total, abject, legendary failure (Showgirls). It’s a well directed little chiller, with very able performances by the leads, worth seeking out for fans of the director or the curious. I’m not sure how a film with a man dreaming of getting his penis severed by scissors manages to rate as “dialed down”, but, well, that’s Paul Verhoeven for you.
-Bowen
