- For a long while, I couldn't decide whether Paul Verhoeven was in on the joke. Were his gratuitous films intended as satire, or did they themselves deserve to be satirized? In the case of Robocop, I think one can make a strong case that the hyperbolic violence presented therein is all part of a larger message. Sure, that message is encoded in a language of blood and explosions and delivered by a cyborg police officer, but it's there nonetheless. You just have to look for it.
- That android, by the way, was once a man named Murphy (Peter Weller). Murphy is a good cop who has the bad fortune to get transferred to one of Old Detroit's most dangerous police precincts. His new partner Lewis (Nancy Allen) barely has time to show him the ropes before the two find themselves going up against a gang of thugs (including Ray Wise, Paul McCrane, and Jesse D. Goins) led by the ruthless Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith). Boddicker's mantra is simple and revealing: "Cops don't like me, so I don't like cops." When they trap Murphy alone in a room, it's like someone dropped a steak into the shark tank. They have their fun and shoot their guns, and it looks like Lewis is going to have to get herself a new partner.
- But that's not quite the end of the story. It turns out that OCP, the private company that runs Detroit's police force, has been looking for a "volunteer" for their new "crime management program." Whereas the mecha-like monstrosity (brought to life with top-notch stop-motion techniques) backed by OCP "Number Two" man Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) has the unfortunate tendency to blow everyone and everything to hell, corporate upstart Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) has wagered his career that a slightly more human approach to law enforcement will be more effective. Actually, Jones and Morton don't really care how well their products work -- they're just interested in making sales and climbing the corporate ladder. Nonetheless, Murphy becomes the unwitting test subject for the first semi-robotic police officer on the force. We're talking high-tech targeting systems, bulletproof armor, and a gun holster built into his leg, here. The question is, how much of Murphy is really left?
- It's at this point in the review that I would like to take a slight diversion. If you don't want to worry about the dehumanizing effects of violent crime and privatized armored police forces, perhaps I can interest you in the new 6000-SUX, which promises a whopping 8.2 MPG ("An American Tradition!"). Or what about the family board game modeled around a nuclear arms race ("Nukem. Get them before they get you")? And then there's everyone's favorite show, "I'd Buy That For a Dollar," which somehow sets a whole new standard for lowest-common-denominator humor. With all those news reports concerning the zany malfunctions up on the "Star Wars orbiting peace platform," who has time to worry about a silly old Robocop?
- On its surface, Robocop is an action film. A violent, well-directed, violent action film in which a guy falls into toxic waste and melts for a while before getting splattered on a windshield. Arteries are stabbed, extremities are shot, and one guy even goes tumbling out of a skyscraper. Simultaneously, the film has its finger on the pulse of American political, economic, and television culture in a way that's uncomfortably relevant over twenty years after the film was made. To choose one example, I'm just guessing that a significant fraction of the current Republican presidential candidates would be all-too-eager to hand over law enforcement to a private corporation, even one so obviously corrupt as OCP. If there is a beacon of hope anywhere in the film, it's that Murphy remembers that he's human by the end. It's never clear whether anybody else in the film even bothers to notice.
- I really must note that Robocop features what is probably the greatest collection of asshole character actors that has ever appeared in a single film. The only possible competitor would be the following year's Die Hard.
- It also features Dan O'Herlihy as "The Old Man."
