1987 science fiction, dir. Paul Verhoeven, Peter Weller, Nancy Allen:
IMDb /
allmovie. When do we start?
As soon as some poor schmuck volunteers.
Well, yes, what in the 1980s was exaggerated parody of Reagan's
policies is now just the news. But it's still parody that works well,
wrapped round an interesting echo of Network, the film that brought
corporate shenanigans as a plot driver into the mainstream.
What particularly impresses me is that even the bad guys have
character: it may just be sketched in and wouldn't impress me in a
book, but Emil is distinctly Emil, Leon is distinctly Leon, and so on.
Boddicker comes over not just as a drug kingpin but as a street thug
who aspires to the big time and overreaches himself.
And of course there's Verhoeven and his taste for "more blood!".
ED-209's killing of Kenney, and the gang's killing of Murphy, are wildly
overdone; but that's rather tha point, that "wildly overdone" is for
the gang just business as usual, and for ED-209 an acceptable approach
to police work.
Yes, all right, the redemption doesn't go far enough; Delta City is
still going to happen and the people living there now will be
displaced, the company's going to be in charge of it, and the police
are still going to be protecting capital. But it's a start, and a very
good one.
I talk about this film further on
Ribbon of Memes.
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