Tricked

I watched this movie on an online streaming service which is apparently a different experience than watching it on DVD. This version is over 90 minutes long and has what I'm assuming is the DVD "making of" featurette, which is about 45 minutes long, attached to the front of it. While in theory I'm all for DVD extras, I rarely actually enjoy them. But given the unusual circumstances behind this movie, the featurette was actually interesting. Verhoeven started with just 5 pages of script and tried to crowdsource the writing of the rest of it. Naturally, this lead to problems, and his struggles to get the film finished made for an interesting story in itself, and I imagine the details would be informative viewing for movie fans and for anyone who wants to make movies themselves.

And how was the movie itself? Better than it had any right to be, but nothing particularly exceptional. The story involves the birthday celebration of a married businessman and the events triggered when his pregnant ex-lover shows up unexpectedly. The story isn't bad but it never escapes the feeling of being a light-hearted soap opera. The performances are good but the script never gets particularly compelling and the whole thing feels inconsequential. Anyone who didn't know the back story of the movie or who wasn't a fan of the director would probably never bother with it.

During the birthday party of the wolf 50 year-old entrepreneur Remco (Peter Blok) promoted by his beloved wife and partner Ineke (Ricky Koole), he learns that his former lover Nadja (Sallie Harmsen) is pregnant. On the next morning, he also learns that his two other partners have betrayed him and are trying to sell his company to the Chinese. They blackmail him with Nadja´s baby, promising that she will disappear if he sells the company. Meanwhile his daughter, her best friend and his son discover a secret that will affect Remco´s business.

"Steekspel", a.k.a. "Tricked", is a witty and very funny comedy by Paul Verhoeven. The storyline is simple about a dysfunctional family and with several twists and an excellent open conclusion. The nice cast is another attraction of this underrated film. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Traição" ("Betrayal")

Exploring Paul Verhoeven's filmography means eventually stumbling upon Tricked, which runs for just under an hour, but doesn't seem to be a TV movie or part of a series. It was created from some kind of program/competition called Entertainment Experience, and I've been reading about it to try and understand it, but I don't. I don't even know whether calling it a competition is useful or accurate. It was some strange Dutch thing that my brain cannot comprehend or make sense of.

But the resulting film is pretty straightforward. It's short, to the point, and not nearly as crazy as most Verhoeven projects, but it works pretty well as a dark comedy. There's basically a terrible husband, and he's celebrating his 50th birthday, and he has various affairs that collide and mess up aspects of his family and professional life.

From what I can gather about the production, different people initially scripted different parts of what was filmed... but Verhoeven ended up sort of doing his own thing in the end? I don't know. This is confusing. I can usually read about unusual projects and more or less understand and summarize them, but this thing - this Tricked - has kind of tricked me. Words fail me, and I just don't know.

As a movie, it's fine for what it is. It doesn't waste time and it's kind of amusing/entertaining, if a little slight, in the end. It's interesting to see some of these lesser-known Verhoeven films, though, and I'm starting to realize that even if the director's had a couple of misses in his time, he's never seemed to miss twice in a row. The guy's made almost 20 movies, and most are at least pretty good. Even the ones that aren't good are still interesting; the kinds of somewhat bad movies that aren't necessarily bad times to watch.

What gets left out of the description is the 33 minutes at the beginning of the movie where Verhoeven is fawned over by various people as he explains how the script for the film was constructed. The screenwriter wrote only the first 4 pages. The rest pf the narrative arc was crowd-sourced, and - like anything crowd-sourced - it's profoundly mediocre. Crowds don't make great art. Only gifted individuals do. Lots of effort for not much benefit. So, keep in mind: the fictional movie itself is only about an hour long - and there are no surprises - just Paul Verhoeven congratulating himself on being so hip and smart.

I've seen movies that were pointedly biting and acrid in their comedy or drama, but still I felt unprepared for the beginning of 'Tricked' - this is a treat that sprouts porcupine spines as it goes down. The sordid secrets, searing spite, and complications these characters have between one another are all but bewildering, and the blend of it all is consistently spicy from the very start. That the tone isn't carried through the entire way is a tad unfortunate, for where the writing deviates from the dark humor it feels a tad common. Still, overall this is pretty fun!

The crowd-sourced inception of the project is marvelously novel. While director Paul Verhoeven lends his own hand to the writing to tie it all together, clearly the folks who contributed otherwise are no slouches, either. In fact, whether one wishes to credit Verhoeven alone with his skills as a filmmaker, or the collective imagination of non-professionals who pieced together the story, I don't think those origins are reflected in the finished product the way one might fear. The technical craft of 'Tricked' from behind the scenes is impeccable, and the writing comes across as being equally keen. The characters are smart with a lot going on behind their superficial sociability, and the dialogue between them is decidedly cutting. True, the narrative as a whole isn't the most extraordinary concoction, but it's duly engrossing and satisfying all the same. And just as much to the point, where the story may marginally falter, the scene writing tends to pick up the slack with the same best wit and intelligence that we recognize elsewhere in the assembled screenplay.

I also really like the cast. The characters distinctly vary even as they share personality traits, but are also written with sufficient room to allow the ensemble a measure of interpretation. And they take advantage of what they're given with fine portrayals to really bring the figures to vivid life. It hardly seems fair to even highlight one actor over another, as at one point or another each is given the spotlight and demonstrates their abilities.

Purely as a point of comparison I'd be curious to watch the companion feature, 'Counterparts,' that was derived directly from the crowd-sourced material. As it is, 'Tricked' is imperfect, yet nonetheless a delightful addition to Verhoeven's body of work. Even for as consciously bitter as much of the humor and story beats may be, one could argue that this remains light amusement relative to some of the director's other films. There were a lot of ways this could have gone wrong, though, and not least with Verhoeven's experience and steady guiding hand at the helm, the movie is highly enjoyable and a good use of 55 short minutes.