Spetters
Short description
Spetters follows a group of young friends in a Dutch town whose lives revolve around motocross racing. Rien and Hans compete as amateurs, with their friend Eef working as their mechanic, and all three become involved with Fientje, a young woman who runs a food stand at the races with her brother Jaap. The three men share the ambition of turning professional and emulating their idol, the champion rider Gerrit Witkamp, while Fientje hopes to leave the stand and her brother behind. Their paths diverge as their personal and romantic entanglements complicate their plans.
Paul Verhoeven directed the film, the fourth of the sixteen features he has made in chronological order, arriving between Soldier of Orange and The 4th Man. Gerard Soeteman and Jan Wolkers wrote the screenplay, and Joop van den Ende produced it. The cast includes Hans van Tongeren as Rien, Renée Soutendijk as Fientje, Toon Agterberg as Eef, Maarten Spanjer as Hans, Marianne Boyer as Maya and Rutger Hauer as Gerrit Witkamp, among twenty-six credited performers. It runs 120 minutes.
On TMDB the film holds a rating of 6.4 out of 10 from 124 votes, indicating a modest but steady level of attention rather than broad consensus. The story mixes drama and romance around its racing backdrop, and the reception it has drawn has remained limited in scale over the years since its 1980 release.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film faced scathing criticism in the Netherlands, where it was described as an affront to women, gay people, the disabled, and Christians in general. Critics called the film completely devoid of any moral values and even decadent. This reaction to the film was one of the reasons that prompted Paul Verhoeven to move to the United States and make films there. The director would later say that the criticism of "Showgirls" (1995) did not bother him precisely because he had already gone through all of this after " Turks in Extermo".
- The first version of the script was rejected in Denmark for being too vulgar. The script was rewritten and funding was secured, but Paul Verhoeven still filmed the movie based on the original script.
- During the bar fight, a beer glass hits the character played by Ton Agterberg in the head. The glass was thrown by director Paul Verhoeven, and after filming, Agterberg's wound had to be stitched.
- The rape scene was filmed not on a set, but in a real subway tunnel that was under construction at the time. In order to set up the equipment and film, the guards had to be distracted.
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