Review of The 4th Man

Of Verhoeven we know above all the films that the director has turned after his transfer to the USA, and on all of course Basic Instinct. But the authentic soul of the director, perhaps, we find him in the films previously filmed in the Netherlands. Among these: the fourth man. Film from the novel of the same name from Gererd Reve (which will also be the bisexual writer masterfully interpreted by the Dutch actor Jeroen Karabbé). The titles of the head as well as those of the tail, frame a spider that captures its victims, with a spider web tense in the arms of a crucifix, essential elements that we will find in the development of history. The black widow is the Dark Lady seduces men causing death (here the choice of the director has fallen on the Dutch actress Renée Soutendijk, who has fallen perfectly in the part), while Christian religiosity embodies in the female figure that the protagonist It personifies in the Madonna, which somehow with premonitions tries to warn him of the incumbent danger. Visionary, irreverent, iconoclast. Movie worth being rediscovered!