by Victor Pryor
For those of a certain… well, let’s be polite and call it a temperament… there is no arguing that Paul Verhoeven is one of the greatest directors of the modern era, a superb guy who managed to pack his blockbusters with so much wit and entertainment value that Hollywood didn’t notice the deep indentations his teeth had made in their feedin’ hands for nearly two decades.
Sex and violence were hardly in short supply back then (woe to the uninformed modern youth, who cannot conceive of a time where gratuitous nudity and sex scenes were not only expected, but practically mandatory), but there was a certain gleeful bluntness to the way Verhoeven tossed bodies at us, for the purposes of both copulation and evisceration.
He gave the people what they wanted, made fun of them for wanting it so bad, and we all thanked him for it.
The dark irony of a master of visceral onscreen bloodletting finally being brought low when he focused in on sex at the expense of the violence is worthy of another essay entirely. But I don’t talk about that anymore. Not after… the incident…
Besides having the Mad Dutchman behind the helm, Tricked is mostly notable for its unique birthing process: only the first four minutes of the film were scripted by a professional screenwriter; the rest was crowdsourced in a form of reality show competition and… well, allow me to cut and paste from Wikipedia to properly explain it:
“The film script consisted of eight parts. Part one was written by Kim van Kooten. “The crowd” (participators of the competition) wrote the scripts for the seven following parts. Each of the participating film crews made a single short film, corresponding to their part of the film, while Verhoeven filmed all the scripts for his version.”
All of this is (sort of) explained in the opening half hour of the film, which acts as a kind of behind the scenes documentary (the actual movie itself is roughly 50 minutes or so).
Which is a deeply bizarre thing; I actually stopped and restarted the movie, thinking I had accidentally clicked on one of the extras. And make no mistake, that’s exactly what the first thirty minutes feel like: a DVD extra where they look at the production of the film, replete with a spoiler or two.
It is… very odd.
For his part, this choice gives us as good a look at Verhoeven as a filmmaker as we’ve ever gotten, as the intro details the meticulous process that went into shaping the final product, portrays his enjoying playing things a little looser than usual, and provides an insight into the general creative restlessness that has kept him a vital (if maddeningly unprolific) auteur for over four decades now.
(He also throws a little shade at Robocop 2. Shots fired, Ghost Of Irving Kirshner!!!)
But watching that process unfold — which is revealed to have taken nearly two years from inception to completion — watching that process unfold, and being aware of Verhoeven as such a distinctive artist, with such a personal specific voice, the question is raised: in light of having this camel coded process in the first place, can the end result possibly be a good use of his time and talent?
…Ehhh, I suppose.
Put aside the details of its origin, and what you have in Tricked is a fairly entertaining, very light (in tone if not content) family drama, with mild thriller-ish overtones. The setup is fairly simple: Remco (Peter Blok) is a married company owner (his wife Ineke being a fellow shareholder) who receives an unexpected and unwanted visit on his birthday from Nadja, a former employee, now in what we used to euphemistically refer to as “a delicate state.” Nadja’s re-emergence threatens to topple Remco’s carefully built personal and professional house of cards… though, as we eventually discover in one of the better gags, well-built doesn’t necessarily mean well-kept.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Tricked is how well it all hangs together. One would anticipate (and maybe even prefer) wild flights of fancy in such a patchwork. But instead, it’s a simple story, told in a generally straightforward manner. Which means that once you get past the initial conceit of construction there’s nothing inherently unique or interesting about it.
But then again: Verhoeven.
While nothing about this seems like it would appeal to Verhoeven’s outre sensibilities (a fact which seems to give him a certain amount of pleasure in the documentary portion), make no mistake: there is a very palpable thread of his very particular, very perverse sense of humor woven throughout the entire enterprise. For instance, the discovery of the clue that reveals Nadja may not be all she seems is delightfully tasteless on a couple of levels, as is the hilariously direct way Ineke resolves matters. And the closing punchline has a cynical kick that’s vintage Verhoeven.
All of this makes a very interesting feel with the actual tone of the film, which feels as airy as can be. The problems of Remco and his family never develop anything resembling a sense of urgency. Which isn’t a complaint, so much as an observation: For all of the stress and hardship alluded to in the documentary section, it’s pretty obvious that this is something of a lark for Verhoeven, and that sensation carries right on through to the film itself.
Having chosen to enlist professional actors for his experiment, Verhoeven elicits his typical sterling performances. The big gag of the film is that everybody is utterly terrible at hiding their deep, dark secrets. Remco is pretty obviously an unfaithful husband and terrible businessman; his daughter Lieke (Carolien Spoor, hilarious) is a blatant alcoholic. Son Tobias is a total creep (but a boyishly earnest one, well-played by Robert de Hoog); Remco’s co-owner Wim (Jochum ten Haaf) is transparently shady and conniving (and looks uncannily like the goofy fat friend from every American sitcom from the early 2010s). All of them think they’re hiding their agendas or problems so well, but it’s only the relentless self-absorption of everyone else that allows them to go as far off the rails as they all eventually wind up being.
As Remco, Peter Blok assays a enjoyably dim patriarch, almost childlike in his need for constant stimulation and inability to comprehend anything other than his own immediate needs. Spoor and de Hoog wring no small amount of fun out of their characters, as does Sallie Harmsen as the would-be manipulator Nadja, who proves to be a good match for Remco when it comes to maintaining a decent poker face. Only Ineke (Ricky Koole, living up to her last name) proves herself an actual player. What she knows and and doesn’t know, and how she reacts when she finds out, are among the most surprising and cathartic of the films many turns.
But the real MVP is Gaite Jansen, who holds it all together as Lieke’s best friend Merel, who is just as terrible at hiding her lust for Remco as every other character is at keeping their secrets. But unlike almost everyone else, Merel has just enough self awareness to realize things need to change. Jansen is sexy, wildly charismatic, and wonderfully complex. Hollywood, pay attention. And don’t screw it up.
Tricked is admittedly a trifle. But it’s a trifle by Paul Verhoeven, which on the general trifle scale, raises way above its actual station. In the end, it’s not much more than a bit of harmless fun. Which, in it’s own way, is the biggest trick of them all.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Besides a couple of superfluous behind the scenes shorts, a brief interview with Verhoeven (also redundant) and Spoor (less redundant), and some festival based interview promos, the most interesting extra is footage from open casting calls in both Amsterdam and the Hague, where we see the opening dinner scene performed by dozens of different actors… none of whom wound up with the part. Also, Katy Perry plays during a montage, making it the first DVD extra I’ve ever seen that required a separate music licensing fee…