Robocop (1987)
One of the quintessential action movie
of the eighties. But it also so much more than that. A film that
heaped up the violence while making several political statements at
the same time. Put out by a director that seems to make either really
solid movies or films that leave you wanting a refund on the hour or
so of you life that you just spent watching them. Thankfully, Robocop
is of the first kind.
The edition of this film I watched for
the review was the unrated directors cut. As some may know the movie
had to be submitted to the MPAA twelve different time in order to
finally get the rating down to a R. I believe everything cut for that
rating was violence and gore. Especially in the scene where Murphy is
executed by Boddickers gang. Not surprisingly it is still far less
gory then what we see getting R ratings now. Times have changed and
many wouldn't see the extended footage as shocking as they would have
back in 87.
We see the biggest and continual
political statement of the film rather quickly. Corporate control of
public services and how little they actually give a shit about them
aside from making money from this. Seeing corporate top dog Dick
Jones talking about how OCP moved into the private sector making
money by running schools, prisons and so on makes a very profound
point now as we are actually seeing this happen today. Getting a good
view of the top management in their towers fighting for power over
who gets to put their project forth paints a nice stark difference
from the police station that is rundown, underfunded and outgunned on
the streets. Having OCP in charge hasn't helped them in the least.
It's like a warning we should have
listened but didn't because we were distracted by everything else in
the movie.
The feeling that Officer Murphy is
pretty doomed from the start is something you can see coming down
mainstreet. He's optimistic, happy, has a good family life and is a
bit charming to his new partner. Yeah if you don't see him going down
hard then you weren't paying attention to how things were going. Kind
of like that dude that got blown apart by the ED 209 and his body,
complete with lettuce sized gaping bullet wounds, was laid out across
the model of Delta City earlier on.
More corporate indifference every time
you turn your head. They mention moving officers to give us a prime
candidate for the Robocop project, which means they put good officers
in places they will likely be killed in so they can harvest the body.
Losing the arm they saved. Walking in and taking over part of the
police precinct while telling officers to piss off. The excess of
indifference is played up very well.
Speaking of excess, let's talk about
the other political and social messages in here. The idea of American
Excess is one, from the SUX 2000 advertisements to the hookers and
blow celebration, we go all out when it comes to over doing every
damned thing. They just don't bother to hide it. Crime going out of
control is another, we see everything from gas station robberies,
attempted rape in the middle of a parking lot, a massive drug lab
and even Dick Jones tempting Boddicker with being the top dog in
charge of a huge potential criminal enterprise with the building of
Delta City. Many shots of the police mentioning how many officers
they've lost to news blurbs quickly covering something terrible
before happily moving on to the next topic.
While the basic premise of the film is
simple there is a whole lot going on that it's almost an overload.
But it's all good business and you won't get bored watching.
This is also the movie that forever
cemented Kurtwood Smith as a dangerous mother fucker in my mind. His
portrayal of Clarence Boddicker is creepy as hell and he outshines
every other person in any scene he is in. Seeing him later as Red
Foreman was something that took me a while to wrap my head around.
Yeah there are some cheese moments. The
way Joe Cox laughs is something I wish I could edit out of the entire
thing. A few obvious fashion statements that come with any older
movie. But thankfully most of everything else holds up very well 30+
years down the line.
In the end I cannot recommend this
movie enough. An action movie with a story bullet that really hits
where it needs to. Although seeing some of the aspects coming to the
real world over the years is a bit depressing. But this should be in
the library of any action/scifi movie fan.
Especially useful to have a copy if you
have one of those idiot friends who says things like “political
statements doesn't belong in movies”, toss this sucker in and watch
them cringe as you explain how those political statements take it
from your average action movie to a great action movie.
If you like what you see here please think about hitting the 'support this blog' button at the top or the 'Ko-Fi' link at the side for ways to help me keep this blog going.
To see a list of movies I have reviewed click the 'movie reviews' listing at the top of this blog.
If you want to pick my the next movie that gets reviewed I run a poll every week over on MeWe now. Click here to add me to your contact list.
"Cue super hero shadow shot since we can't do a super hero landing with this suit."
No comments:
Post a Comment