Jeroen Krabbé Movies
Following a well-received starring role in Paul Verhoeven's Soldaat Van Oranje (1979), burly, handsome Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe learned to act at the Amsterdam Academy of Performing Arts and got his start playing small roles in such films as Alicia (1974). During his early years, Krabbe founded a touring theater company, directed plays, worked as a costume designer, and translated foreign plays into Dutch. His star status was solidified when Verhoeven cast Krabbe in De Vierde Man (The Fourth Man) (1983), which has since become a cult favorite. This film gave Krabbe an international reputation and in the mid-'80s, he moved to Hollywood to appear in such films as Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) and Prince of Tides (1991). Through the '90s, Krabbe tended to play large villains in dramas and costume dramas ranging from The Fugitive (1993) to Farianelli (1994) to Lorca (1997). When not acting, Krabbe is a noted painter and author of The Economy Cookbook. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1963
Novice Dutch director and scripter Jef van der Heyden does not quite deliver an engaging drama in this slight, slow-paced tale about three brothers who dream about "bicycling to the moon" but whose reality is quite different. One of the brothers is a painter with little or no talent, another is both sensitive and introverted and yet chooses the career of a policeman, and the third brother is a hobo of sorts, a petty thief who uses the Amsterdam canals to hide the bicycles he nabs until he can come back and retrieve them the next day. Each brother wants to find happiness but does not seem to know how to go about achieving it. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernard Droog
- 1968
A scholarly library researcher inherits a steamship from a distant relative. The mild-mannered man is compelled to sail away to fulfill his lifelong dream of adventure on the open seas. He arrives at the boat to find it is being inhabited by a group of hippies. He and the psychedelically inspired crew set sail for a mythical port of paradise in this only slightly amusing comedy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- 1972
This heart-rending family-oriented drama chronicles the adventure of two Dutch children who temporarily lose their father and mother during the great flood of 1953. Fortunately, they and their animals are taken in by a salty old boatman who helps them reunite with their father. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1974
Alicia is a Dutch housewife who has grown weary of being treated as a mere utilitarian object. She escapes from her family, and has a series of encounters and adventures, some of which are of an erotic nature. Because she is continuing to draw on her joint bank account with her bank-manager husband, he is able to trace her steps, though she eludes his grasp. Eventually, tiring of these adventures, she returns to her home. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
With this fact-based World War II drama and the equally memorable The Fourth Man (1983), Dutch director Paul Verhoeven gained an international following, eventually translating his reputation into Hollywood fame as the director of bloody science fiction spectacles and prurient sex thrillers. Rutger Hauer stars as Erik Lanshof, an aristocratic Dutch student, one of six carefree friends who don't care much for politics. When the Nazis invade Holland, however, the group is drawn inevitably into the conflict. While Alex (Derek de Lint) joins the German army, the suave Gus (Jeroen Krabbe) becomes a resistance leader, eventually escaping with Erik to England, where they become pawns in a much larger underground movement to restore their country's Queen Wilhelmina (Andrea Domburg) to her rightful throne. Based on an autobiographical novel by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, Soldaat van Oranje (1978) also features early work by another Dutch master who went on to success as a director of big budget Hollywood films, cinematographer Jan De Bont. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rutger Hauer, Jeroen Krabbé, (more)
- 1979
In an uneven curiosity from Dutch director Bert Haanstra that seems to have no singular objective, the mistreatment of a company boss comes under scrutiny. When Old Slieps (Paul Steenbergen) retires from managing a baby-buggy factory, he passes his mantle on to Hein Slotter (Kees Brusse), a dull yet efficient manager. Time goes by, and Slotter survives the cold shoulders of the company directors who intensely dislike the man. These directors develop a plan to humiliate Slotter at a celebration of his 25th anniversary as manager as a means of venting their feelings. They concoct a story of his being "thrashed" by a younger employee and indirectly challenge Slotter to handle this embarrassment as best he can. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kees Brusse, Bernard Droog, (more)
Spetters further elaborates on the themes of sexual obsession previously probed in director Paul Verhoeven's Turkish Delight (1973). Hans Van Tongeren, Toon Agterberg and Maarten Spanjer play, respectively, Reen, Eve and Hans, a closely-knit group of teenage motorcycle lovers who idolize local cycling champion Witkamp (played by Rutger Hauer, the star of Delight). Unfortunately, the adolescents' attempts to rebel take a dark and brutal turn when Van Tongeren is permanently injured in a road accident and Agterberg is gang raped by a group of homosexuals. While the other two young men lust after Fientje (Renee Soutendjik), a promiscuous hashhouse waitress, Agterberg responds to the rape by coming out and taking Fientje's gay brother as a lover. Verhoeven is artistically and sexually graphic in juxtaposing "cycle love" with the friends' carnal interrelations. The title of Spetters is an indigenous triple-entendre -- it refers to the Dutch vernacular for "grease spatterings" (both the oily renderings left behind by the motorcycles commandeered by the film's central characters and the grease slung by Soutendjik), is a slang term for male ejaculate, and was frequently used in the seventies and eighties to refer to people who are sexually appealing ("That girl is a spetter.")
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hans Van Tongeren, Renée Soutendijk, (more)
- 1981
In this Dutch film, Maarten (Jeroen Krabbe) is a thirtysomething biologist who has yet to lose his virginity. When he dreams that he will die if he is unable to sleep with a woman in the next seven days, Maarten and his alter ego set out to save his life. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1982
Maarten (Jeroen Krabbe) is a professor of cell biology who has devoted his life to his studies and teaching, to such an extent that he has never had a relationship with a woman. He lives at home with his invalid mother, and so far, life has been going along in its usual, puritanical, repressed way -- until he has a strange dream. According to the vision in the dream, unless he manages to start a sexual relationship with a woman within seven days, he will not live to see the eighth day. Worried and nagged onward by a persistent alter-ego (Krabbe again), Maarten begins to see the first light of liberation when tragedy strikes and his ailing mother dies. He is sad, but at the same time freed from the shackles she represented. Soon he meets an attractive woman, the seeds of desire are mutually nurtured, and it looks very much like Maarten may gain a jolly good reprieve from the grim reaper. This is director Ate De Jong's first film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeroen Krabbé, Marijke Merckens, (more)
- 1982
World War III is an ambitious if unnecessarily protracted speculative TV movie. Set in a "future December," the film prophesies an American grain embargo levied on Russia. US President Rock Hudson is entreated by the Soviet higher-ups to drop the ban; meanwhile, a group of renegade Russian military officers begin sending expeditionary forces into Alaska. While the countdown to Doomsday begins, the film insists upon cutting back to several expendable romances in both the American and Soviet camps. Boris Sagal, the original director of World War III, was killed in a freak helicopter accident while on location. To make up for lost time, the production was moved to the soundstages of Zoetrope Studios and overseen by ultra-efficient TV director David Greene. Part Two finds novice American president Rock Hudson trying to effect an honorable peace with Soviet premiere Brian Keith. But insurgent military officers endeavoring to seize the Alaska Pipeline as a bargaining chip continue to escalate the hostilities. It develops that the fate of the world may rest in the hands of American colonel David Soul. Also appearing is Cathy Lee Crosby, endearingly miscast as an intelligence officer. A heart-stopping surprise twist brings World War III to a close. While the film has its moments of genuine suspense, one can't help but feel that World War III would have been better an hour or two shorter--or at least with a few of the subplot romances removed. Originally running four hours, World War III was telecast in two parts on January 31 and February 1, 1982.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This stylish erotic thriller gained a cult following for its frank treatment of bisexuality, bizarre visuals, and an extremely sexy performance by Renee Soutendijk as a woman who may or may not have killed her three previous husbands. Jeroen Krabbe is terrific as the intended fourth, a broken-down bisexual writer who is pulled into Soutendijk's web like an unsuspecting fly. Bloody and erotic, De Vierde Man will also interest fans of director Paul Verhoeven, who returned to many of the same themes in his smash American hit Basic Instinct. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeroen Krabbé, Renée Soutendijk, (more)
- 1985
- PG
Adapted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Russell Hoban, Turtle Diary stars Glenda Jackson as a famed author/illustrator of children's books. In the midst of her success, Jackson suffers from writer's block. While casting about for new ideas, she makes several visits to the turtle tank at the local aquarium, where she becomes acquainted with shy bookstore clerk Ben Kingsley. From this point on, nothing is in the least predictable. What can one say that's sensible about a plotline that climaxes with a turtle hijacking? Screenwriter Pinter has a cameo role as "Man in Bookshop." Turtle Diary was the maiden effort of United British Artists, a consortium consisting of Glenda Jackson, Harold Pinter, and producer Richard Johnson (who also appears in the film). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenda Jackson, Ben Kingsley, (more)
Penny Marshall in her feature film directing debut, four screenwriters, and a ebullient Whoopi Goldberg join forces to make Jumpin' Jack Flash, a modern espionage comedy. Goldberg plays Terry Doolittle, a computer operator in a large New York City bank who picks up a cry of help on her computer. The signal is from a man who signs off as Jumpin' Jack Flash. Based on the Rolling Stones tune of that name, she figures out his secret password and opens up a Pandora's box of international intrigue. It seems Jack Flash is a pseudonym for a British agent who is trapped in Russia and desperate for information from the British Embassy that will help him escape. When Terry agrees to help him, the CIA, the KGB, British intelligence, and sundry other law enforcement organizations are all hot on her tail as she tries to help the beleaguered British agent. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Whoopi Goldberg, Jonathan Pryce, (more)
- 1986
During the Nazi invasion of Holland, Jewish pacifist Edwin De Vries and resistance leader Jeroen Krabbe react in different ways to the fall of Amsterdam. De Vries tries his best to peacefully coexist with the occupation forces, in hopes of helping his fellow Jews escape. Krabbe prefers the direct approach of guerrilla warfare, killing as many Nazis as possible. Though given fictionalized names, the central characters of Shadow of Victory are based on two real-life figures, theologian Friedrich Weinreb and freedom fighter Gerrit van der Veen. This film was originally distributed in the Netherlands as In de Schaduw van de Overwinning. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
High-powered gangsters move this crime drama along at a fast pace. When two cops, Eddie Jillette (Richard Gere) and Joe Collins (Gary Basaraba), hear about a contract out on local crime boss Losado (Jeroen Krabbe), they go undercover posing as hitmen, and the result is murder. Collins and the man who hired them, Paul Deveneux (Terry Kinney) are killed, and Jillette goes looking for the assassin. He ends up in New Orleans where he locates Michel Duval (Kim Basinger), the girlfriend of Deveneux now virtually held a prisoner by Losado. Jillette has his work cut out for him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Kim Basinger, (more)
- 1986
Based on true events but at the same time a fictional account, this compelling, fast-paced wartime drama of two heroic resistance fighters in Holland deserves attention. Peter van Dijk (Jeroen Krabbe) is an accomplished artist who is thrown into the leadership of the resistance movement out of a series of tragic events. He leads military raids against the Germans and is at the top of their "Most Wanted" list. David Blumberg (Edwin de Vries) hits upon an imaginative and daring plot to save as many Jews as he can from the Nazi death camps. He invents a fake General von Spiegel who sends him lists of Jews who should be sent to Switzerland, provided they can come up with enough jewels or whatever to front the cost. The Gestapo buys this ploy, and hundreds of Jews are saved as a result (a true historical fact). Blumberg and van Dijk's stories become intertwined and expanded, filling in context and entertaining subsidiary characters as they go along. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeroen Krabbé, Edwin de Vries, (more)
Kate Capshaw plays a schoolteacher and suburban housewife who happens to be an ex-spy. Nobody knows of Capshaw's previous espionage activities, least of all her somewhat obtuse husband Cliff De Young. When Capshaw's ex-lover Jeroen Krabbe, an intimate of Castro, lands in a Cuban prison, she is swept back into the spy business, leaving her nonplussed hubby in the dust. Made for television, Her Secret Life did prove there was more to Kate Capshaw's repertoire than the wimpy heroine of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It also proved that a workable premise is not enough when the script is skimpy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The Living Daylights represents the first appearance by Timothy Dalton as "Bond...James Bond." Based very, very loosely on an obscure Ian Fleming short story, the film finds Bond assigned to aid in the defection of KGB agent Jeroen Krabbe. 007 must prevent an unknown sniper from killing Krabbe before he can reach the West. The mysterious assailant turns out to be the luscious Maryam d'Abo, who like practically everyone in the film except Bond is Not All That She Seems. The plot wends its way through a scheme to trade several million dollars' worth of diamonds for weapons, which will be shipped off to mercenaries worldwide. The climax takes place high above the clouds in a cargo plane loaded with opium. Dalton would play Bond one more time in License to Kill (1989) before handing the franchise over to Pierce Brosnan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Dalton, Maryam D'Abo, (more)
Can an independent, contemporary woman find happiness with a guy who sells pickles? Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving) is an attractive, intelligent Jewish woman in her early 30s. She has a good job and a nice apartment on the Upper West Side, and she values her independence; she often visits her grandmother Bubbie (Reiz Bozyk), who lives on the Lower East Side and wants Isabelle to meet a nice Jewish man and settle down. Bubbie goes so far as to obtain the services of Hannah Mandelbaum (Sylvia Miles), a matchmaker who finds the "perfect" man for Isabelle: a pickle salesman named Sam Posner (Peter Riegert). Isabelle thinks Sam is a nice enough guy, but she has a hard time imagining herself spending her life with the pickle man, and she isn't sure if she wants to pursue the relationship. However, Sam is taken with Isabelle and goes out of his way to change her mind. Crossing Delancy was directed by Joan Micklin Silver, whose breakthrough film Hester Street also examined Jewish culture on the Lower East Side, albeit from the vantage point of the 1890s. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amy Irving, Reizl Bozyk, (more)
- 1988
Tom Hulce plays a Polish Jew who turns to the Dutch profiteer Theo (Jeroen Krabbe) for help to escape from the Nazis. Theo refuses to help the fugitive because he has no money, but the desperate visitor insists on staying. Theo risks his life by giving the man food and shelter. Hulce's character (who is never referred to as Shadowman) jumps into an Amsterdam canal and swims for his life while the Nazis try to gun him down. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeroen Krabbé, Tom Hulce, (more)
Cinematographer Chris Menges' first directorial effort, A World Apart was inspired by the lives of South African journalist Ruth First and her daughter Shawn Slovo (who wrote the film's screenplay). Barbara Hershey plays the fictional counterpart to Ms. First, Diana Roth, with Jodhi May as her daughter. Told from the daughter's viewpoint, the film shows us that Diana and her husband Jeroen Krabbe are so busy with their anti-Apartheid political activism that they totally shut May out of their lives. In 1963, Hershey is arrested by the South African police, becoming the first white woman to be held under the infamous 90-day-detention act. Left despondent and suicidal by two separate arrests and by constant harassment from the police, Diana still won't include her daughter in her life until the girl presses the issue in a climactic confrontation. Some critics felt that Shawn Slovo was using A World Apart to settle unresolved issues in her own life: Ruth First was killed under suspicious circumstances in 1982, without ever reconciling with her daughter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Hershey, Jodhi May, (more)
- 1989
Melancholia is a British suspenser, filmed and financed in Germany. Jeroen Krabbe plays a German art critic who in more turbulent times had been a radical activist. Krabbe's past collides with his present when a London political figure is marked for assassination. With only the slightest tinge of conscience, Krabbe agrees to pull off the killing. It is always a pleasure to see leading lady Susannah York, even in the morally ambivalent circumstances of Melancholia. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeroen Krabbé, Susannah York, (more)
- 1989
- R
In 1963, the conservative British government was shaken to its foundations by the Profumo Scandal. The central character in this disastrous affair was John Profumo, Britain's minister of war, who had become sexually involved with call-girl Christine Keeler, whose "sponsor" was high-priced osteopath Dr. Stephen Ward. Fancying himself a dashing international adventurer, Ward had also offered Christine to alleged Soviet spy Eugene Ivanov. Another of Ward's stable, Mandy Rice-Davies, allegedly had slept with numerous British and American luminaries. The whole sordid story, which ended with Ward's suicide and Profumo's public disgrace, was recounted with relish in director Michael Caton-Jones's Scandal, which featured John Hurt as Stephen Ward, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer as Christine Keeler, Ian McKellan as Profumo, Bridget Fonda as Mandy Rice-Davies, and Jeroen Krabbe as Ivanov. In its original form, the film was ripe enough to court an X-rating; post-production trimming enabled it to squeak by with an R. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Hurt, Joanne Whalley, (more)
