Review #300: 'Robocop' (1987)

In theory, and from it's ridiculous title, Robocop is an incredibly silly film. The crime ridden streets of Detroit in the not-too-distant future, get a futuristic superhero, a knight in shining armour, from an omnipotent corporation OPC, to protect them from the criminals. However, what we actually get is a very emotional human story, along with some incredibly sharp satire.

Murphy (Peter Weller), a police officer, is killed whilst on a mission with his new partner, Lewis (Nancy Allen). OCP (after a failed attempt at a robot-police programme) commissioned the Robocop program, and Murphy becomes the candidate. His memory is supposed to have been erased by the corporation however, he is reminded by Lewis of his identity. He pieces together the criminals that gunned him down after an incident with Emil (Paul McCrane), and uncovers the criminal machinations of corrupt, corporate business.

As all good science fiction should, Robocop is partially allegorical of the times it was made in. In business, greed, power and wealth dominated (as highlighted in more explicit terms in another film of the same year, Oliver Stones Wall Street, where "greed is good"). Here, violence and deceit are the tactics used to make it in the cut-throat business world. Miguel Ferrer's young, ambitious Bob Morton, and the older rival, Ronny Cox's Dick Jones, battle with each other to get their individual police-robot project's into production. Corruption was also an all pervading element of '80's business (something that was not new of course, we can go back in American history and find many corrupt governments and institutions, Tammany in New York is one example), and we see here the corporate elite working with the criminal underworld.

The excesses of the 1980's greed is permeated within the excesses on screen. Violence is strong, yet comical at times. but it is always over the top. In an early scene, Dick Jones presents his product robot police officer, ED-209, a hulking, malevolent monster. In demonstration, ED-209 malfunctions and shoots an executive hundreds of times, to the point of joke. When Murphy is gunned down, we see his hand explode. Of course this reveals a corporate paranoia underneath some of the movies of the 80's. Each decades science fiction needs paranoia: In the 1950's and 60's it was communism and the nuclear bomb: in the 1970's and 80's it was political and corporate.

The film is injected with some spot-on satirical humour. Adverts are seen throughout, further exacerbating the excesses of American culture at the time. We see commercials selling over-sized, gas guzzling automobiles (6000 SUX), replacement hearts (this clearly to alleviate the excesses on the body caused in the 80's), and a board game of the Battleship-kind (Nuke-Em). These along with the narrative create an almost perfect package. Directed by European Paul Verhoeven who epitomises the concept that the best way for America to hold a mirror up to itself, is to get outsiders to produce something that reflects the madness that was 1980's, Reagan-era, excess and greed. Not only does it offer a commentary, the humanistic, philosophical nature of the soul, is a strong (if often used) theme.

Quite horrifically however, the film manifested into something terrible. I'm not talking about the sequels. The film was to be marketed for children, in the form of a cartoon series, and the inevitable action figures et al. So, like Gremlins (1984), this more "adult" fantasy, marketeers still had the moral sense (sic) to market violence to children - how lovely!


Directed by: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy