Movie of the day: Robocop

With all the talk of Passion of the Christ, we must remember that it’s been done before. I mean, of course, Robocop. I discuss it here because the film (directed very cannily by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, who gave us Soldier of Orange), stripped of its religious trappings, is at heart a parable about the evils of business.

The film presents the ultimate business dystopia. Society is breaking down, and business is at least partly to blame. It has abandoned Motor City, leaving an empty hulk of an automobile plant and a vat of very vile sludge. It has created a mindless commercial culture. Anchor androids smilingly deliver news of horrible catastrophes (Star Wars lasers run amuck, killing a hundred people in Santa Barbara, home of two ex-presidents). A grotesquely tacky vaudeville character seems always to be on the television endlessly repeating “I’ll buy that for a dollar” to canned laughers who never weary of it. Advertisers hawk the latest ugly American car, the subtly named SUX 6000 (which does look disturbingly like a current version of the Chevy Monte Carlo). It’s a world only P.K. Dick could love (and in fact he wrote the story for Total Recall, Verhoeven’s next movie, with similar anti-consumerist images).

Government is too weak to do anything about this. It can’t put criminals in jail because scummy lawyers bleat about civil liberties. Taxpayers won’t or can’t pay the cops, so they’re not there when they’re needed and are outgunned by the bad guys. So government needs to call in the evil corporations to bail it out. The corporations have already replaced the non-profits – artificial heart transplants are advertised like breakfast cereal.

Omni Consumer Products (OCP) operates the Detroit police department. The CEO is the Old Man (Dan O’Herlihy), an older, more traditional, businessman who still cares a little about humans. But the real boss is the colorfully named Dick Jones (Ronny Cox), a ruthless business jerk in the modern mold. Jones plans to replace the human element in law enforcement with a really scary robot, the ED 209. But ED has to be sidelined when it suffers a little glitch and turns a junior executive into smoking rubble in the board room. Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer), a slimy up and comer, has his own plan: turn a dead human cop into a cyborg. Jones and his ED 209 are pushed aside, waiting their turn.

So in addition to all the religion, we have the devolution of the firm, from the vaguely human Old Man and his human cops, to the merely slimy Morton and his partly human cop, to the nonhuman Jones and his completely metal toy.

Good cop Murphy (Peter Weller) is slowly slaughtered by mean mobster Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith), who even nails a bullet in the suffering cop’s hand. OCP resurrects Murphy as software in shiny Robocop. Robocop is part human and part savior, but to OCP he’s “just product.” OCP would rather the human part were just programming, but unfortunately it won’t stay in its place. After he is recognized by Officer Anne Lewis (Mary Magdalen?), Murphy’s former partner, Robo becomes human again.

We ultimately learn that Jones and Boddicker are partners: Jones and OCP are going to create a huge construction project, Boddicker will supply vice to the workforce, and ED 209 will provide the muscle to pull it all together. It will be the apotheosis of the integrated firm, running everything from crime to enforcement.

Clearly mankind must be saved by keeping humans in control. Robocop takes his helmet and visor off and becomes Murphy again. Robocop and Anne then defeat ED 209 and its evil creator Jones. The good guys win by taking the inhumanity out of the corporation and restoring the Old Man to power. Jones has had Robocop programmed with Directive 4: he cannot harm an officer of OCP. In a kind of benignly hostile takeover, the Old Man fires Jones as an officer so Robocop can kill him.

Comments

[Dale Light]

Might I suggest a ninth pro-business film -- "Ghostbusters." The protagonists are small entrepreneurs who are beset on all sides by government agents and regulators.

Nice blog. I used to teach a film course at Penn State and, were I still teaching, would refer my students to it.