Robocop - Murphy’s Law | Trash Cinema Club

Mar

10

Robocop - Murphy’s Law

≡ Category: Action, Essential, Movie Reviews By Country, Satire, Science Fiction, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Action/Satire/Science Fiction
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Year: 1987

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

Robocop was the first movie director Paul Verhoeven made in the United States after a distinguished career in his native Holland. To prepare for Robocop, he learned how to do action scenes and direct English speaking actors while making his previous movie, the excellent medieval siege picture, Flesh + Blood.

But I don’t think anyone in Hollywood was prepared for the ferociousness of Robocop. I have no idea how Verhoeven got the movie past the ratings board. Among other atrocities, people melt, explode, and shoot geysers of arterial blood. Robocop is one of the most explicitly violent mainstream Hollywood films ever made. It’s also one of the best.

Robocop takes place in a future in which Detroit’s police department is run by a private corporation. As our story opens, Officer Murphy (Peter Weller, in the best performance of his career) sustains a serious workplace injury, courtesy of a bunch of thugs led by Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith).

As part of an experimental program, Murphy is repaired into a hybrid of man and machine with a computer chip implanted in his brain that limits his actions and wipes out his memory — Robocop. As long as Robocop is arresting and/or eradicating common muggers and rapists, everything’s cool, but when Robocop starts to recover bits and pieces of his past, he goes after the men who injured him. Lo and behold — it turns out that they have friends in high places, and suddenly all bets are off.

It’s difficult for me to even explain how good Robocop is. As incredible as the action sequences are, they’re the least surprising part of the picture to me. What’s more amazing is how well director Verhoeven integrates the satirical content, not to mention the fact that I was almost moved to tears by the ending.

On one level, Robocop is a satire of corporate malfeasance and infighting, greatly assisted by world class acting. Ronnie Cox, the gentle guitar-playing humanist from Deliverance, is brilliant as corporate scumbag Dick Jones. If that’s not range, I don’t know what is. Miguel Ferrer nails the role of corporate weasel Bob Morton. Don’t you love these character names?

And villains? Screenwriters Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, who also penned the wonderful Rio-Bravo-with-giant-bugs-epic Starship Troopers, create some of the slimiest villains ever to grace the silver screen. There’s Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith), who pulls out the ring on a grenade with his tongue in a way that’ll make you want to take a long hot shower. Or how about Leon Nash (Ray Wise) and Emil Antonowsky (Paul McCrane), members of Boddicker’s gang? Memorable characters all.

Most surprising is the emotional component in Robocop. Officer Murphy loses everything: his home, his children, his wife, even his sense of self. As his quest for vengeance proceeds, he starts to realize the extent of what he’s lost. Will he ever be able to heal his fractured psyche? The answer to that question made me tear up.

So, you’ve got a movie that works on at least four levels: satire, revenge thriller, a tale of spiritual redemption, and a punk/Trash Cinema celebration of kinky carnage. A movie that did any of these four well would be worth seeing. Robocop pulls every one off flawlessly — it’s nothing less than perfect.