The Hollywood films of Dutch director Paul Verhoeven have been foundational to the comedic and political sensibilities of our podcast. From the gore drenched sci-fi satire of Robocop and Total Recall to the trashy sex satire of Basic Instinct and Showgirls, Verhoeven’s self-consciously obscene and absurd visions of American culture have been consistently ahead of their time by about twenty to thirty years. What happens, though, when the reality we’re currently living in has finally caught up to the grotesque visions of Verhoeven’s films?

Perhaps nowhere does this uncannily prophetic phenomenon find a more pure or hilarious expression than in his adaption of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. By presenting an essentially fascist narrative of humanity’s war on a race of giant bugs as straight-up and true to Heinlein’s material as possible, Verhoeven creates a dual context in which the heroes of his film all believe in its insane militaristic politics but the movie itself deftly underscores the suicidal death drive and cheapness of human life endemic to the fascist state. Verhoeven, who himself grew up under the Nazi occupation of Holland, creates something like “Triumph of the Will meets Saved by the Bell” and demonstrates the heights of what irony can achieve in cinema. Starship Troopers is a satirical masterpiece that we should all return to again as our own deeply moribund democracy slouches towards an uncertain future.–Chapo Trap House