Verhoeven gives the castle-knight-damsel genre the once over. Medieval mercenaries led by Rutger Hauer kidnap a noble lady, and she gets Stockholm Syndrome pretty quick. The best thing about Verhoeven is his ability to lean so far into a given genre that he breaks all the way past irony and back into their heart again. There is a tender love scene with a hanged and skinned body in the background, bless.