tdesai99 Verhoeven/Soetman's Spetters is a variation on Saturday Night Fever, a depiction of youth in their age, but unlike the latter film it accomplishes more by serving as a criticism of the entire society it depicts. This criticism (whether conscious or not) is most obvious in the story of Rien Hartman, who kills himself not because he is in a wheelchair per se but because he can no longer get it up, even when his girlfriend tries to give him a blowjob. His manliness and potence is so important to him in this smalltown macho culture that he does not feel human without an erect penis. Of course plenty of people are disabled and live decent lives, but many are able to release their frustration over what they had by finding an inner peace through meditation or something similar. Rien never even considers such a thing because his culture does not allow it. The only religious outlet he has is the occult version of "Christianity" that is depicted in the film, a kind of extroverted showy social religion with nothing to offer the inner soul of the individual except temporary escape. Rien refuses to accept even this, both due to his own internal weakness and also due to its social character, which he feels shamed by.Verhoeven depicts a world with only fake spirituality and no real values except for crusade and conquest. Sexual predation/conquest, financial opportunism, hypocritical preachers, reporters and businessmen are plentiful, but there is little give and take. People take action with limited vision, seeing only themselves and their own interests rather than a larger humanity or their place in it.In SNF, the girl is a pathetic hanger-on who is raped in the end by her own friends for fun, because to them she is worth nothing because she gives herself no worth. In Spetters, the girl is strong but opportunistic, and there is a scene where you see the complexity and guilt of her character underneath the facade. The sexual stuff is accomplished with the closeted homosexual character, who is brutally raped for sport, and then ironically becomes gay because of it. As in SNF, but in a more artistic and ironic way, the values are all skewed for these people. But in SNF, dancing provides a temporary outlet for this macho culture, and ultimately it seems that there is escape for the main character if he can just get out of his class. There is escape possible for the woman in Spetters too, yet it isn't clear that the escape will be better than the current reality, and the only one who really escapes is the predatory brother.In any case, as one of the better "social" films of the past 40 years, I give it 10 stars.

bbraat Let me insert a positive comment prior to my trashing one of the plots of the film: I thought it was great the way the filmmakers handled the nudity and sex. I wasn't shocked by it but rather I found it to be natural and expected when it was shown. often I find that movies that shy away from showing sex use its absence to titillate, for example, the well placed prop or hand that blocks the view of genitals. such practices only serve to draw MORE attention to those body parts. In this film, the casual nudity and sex only served to demystify themselves. It was no porno, the point of the film was not sex. Sex was merely one of the vehicles from point A to B. Good work. I'll have to raise my rating to commend the makers for the groundbreaking WAY they told the story. Many films have offensive plots that never make this much of an impact.Now to my complaint about one of the film's plots: A badly written movie that reminded me of "Valet Girls" and "Angel" ('High school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night' not the Buffy spin-off) without their humor. The writing was on level with the porn movies made at the time. (Yes, the porn writing at that time was in it's heyday but it was still bad writing.) To focus on one of the most egregious part of the plot: Even listening to the director's commentary didn't help explain the whole ridiculous and insulting gay-subplot. Ah, so getting gang-raped by a bunch of guys late one night will make you gay the next day. (i wonder if that would work with lesbians?) So maybe sexually repressed heterosexual women could be helped by gang-rape? Once they get banged they'll realize that they like it, will become sexually liberated, and will show up at the rapist's house the next day for some snuggling as Eef did. A component of good writing is that, even if the revelation about a character is surprising, a viewer should be able to go back in the film and realize that it was foreseeable. In this movie there is nothing that Eef did that showed him to be gay any more than were his friends or the viewers. 1. the measurement scene: it wasn't his idea, it's not uncommon, and if that means he's gay, then his two friends are even more gay. 2. The gay-bashing scene: even if it was his idea, his friends and their girlfriends were at least if not more brutal than he was. 3. Failing to get erect for his girlfriend: as he said he was drunk, I'm sure this has affected most of the film's viewers at one time or another, and from the dialog it seemed as if it had never been a problem before. In fact the other couple also had a problem that prevented them from having sex. 4. Watching the gay sex scene: yes, he watched it briefly but immediately his idea was not to relieve himself sexually. Instead his immediate idea was to use it to make money to win the favor of the girl. If watching three seconds of that scene makes him gay it makes everyone of the viewers who watched it gay as well. 5. Does a twenty year old really living in Rotterdam in the 80s need to be reminded that homosexuality is an option? There is porn of every variety on every newsstand in that country. Legalized prostitutes have delineated districts. If he wanted to have gay sex he probably would have by this point.

Maarten van Krimpen I don't know why I like this film so much...I think there are so much element of the film which are just so dumb and silly, but at the same time, this is just a film that keeps spooking around in you're head and makes you want to see this film for the second time, and for the third time, and for the fourth time, and so on... The story is, I hope, familiar with all you guys who are reading this review, so I skip that part. It's just the sort of story I really would like to see more in Dutch films, and not in the way Johan Nijenhuis does it. A story with real emotions, and where people turn out really different than you think they are for real. Eef here for example, the homophobic who turns out to be gay himself. You don't see that kind of stuff in 'Volle Maan'. The things I really don't like about this is, most of all, the really childish humor in this film, like at the gas station where Eef asks a girl 'Shall I put that in?' (Zal ik m er even insteken). Lame, but I guess that was just 'cool' in that time. But I think this film is excellent just because of the raw manner of filming, with in general not brilliant acting performances, but just very touching.

xavrush89 I tried to be open minded, but basically, there are but three reasons to see this film: 1.) for a time-capsule view of political incorrectness, 2.) to see how much less sexually liberated American movies are (and Americans in general), and 3.) to see men get equal time (if not more time) in the full-frontal nudity department. Otherwise, it's hard to find anything redeeming about this. This film goes almost as far as the French film, "Romance", yet it was made two decades earlier. The difference is, "Romance" actually wrapped an interesting story around its explicitness, with more compelling characters and greater emotional depth. At the same time, this movie isn't bad enough to be "so bad it's good" either. Plus you've got the patented Verhoven too-much-testosterone curse, plus really unlikable characters, except maybe one. As usual, women's roles here are thankless, and the main female character seems to feel the only way she can get ahead is with a man she's boffing. This film also deals with gay-bashing and homosexuality as a subplot but it does not handle it sensitively (not surprisingly). An ultimately unpleasant viewing experience, I kinda felt sorry for the actors who appeared in it (one of whom later committed suicide--not to imply it was because of this film). (P.S. There's nothing any more brutal here than what was in "The Accused.")