Paul Verhoeven
Robocop

Paul Verhoeven is certainly a strange director: from him can emerge actual masterpieces (Turkish Delight, this film I'm about to discuss and, to a lesser extent, the subsequent Starship Troopers), but also real monstrous flops (Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Hollow Man).

Everyone familiar with the Amsterdam filmmaker surely knows his often exaggerated use of violence in his works; perhaps the sum of the entire career of good old Paul, including violence, is encapsulated in what is possibly his best work ever, which is "Robocop." Shot in 1987, it wasn’t initially well-received by critics (better by the public) but was positively re-evaluated over the years, becoming a true cult classic for all fans of science fiction films with a strong action component.

Set in a very near-future Detroit (around 1995 to 2005), torn by violence and crime, a multinational company, the OCP, decides to take over the police department, effectively privatizing it. This is because the company wants to build a new city, Delta City, after demolishing the old Detroit, a symbol of restored peace and cleanliness; however, to achieve this, crime must be eliminated, so two futuristic projects are considered: machines that must maintain order and rid the city of criminal gangs. The first prototype, the crude and gigantic ED-209, however, fails miserably during a demonstration held at the corporate building and ends up gunning down poor guinea pig Kinney with hundreds of bullets, in one of the most chilling and bloody scenes I can recall. So, they proceed with the other project, called Robocop, which involves constructing a cyborg using human organic parts (in particular the brain), connected to a crime prevention computer program.

The guinea pig for this project will be the policeman Alex Murphy (played by a spectacular Peter Weller), who is pronounced dead after being literally mutilated with powerful guns by the gang of the city's most powerful and dangerous criminal, Clarence Boddicker (an Kurtwood Smith at incredibly surprising and brilliant levels as the villain of the film). Now Murphy is dead, he no longer exists, only Robocop remains, whose operational center is the brain of the poor policeman, the only part of the body saved from the brutal murder. Robocop is resolute and brutal, gradually killing all the criminals and drug traffickers in the city when one day memories start to come back to his mind: he remembers having had a son, a wife, he even starts recalling he was named Alex Murphy. Robocop then discovers that Boddicker is protected by the OCP vice president, Dick Jones (great old Ronny Cox in this role), and once he discovers this, he goes to Jones to arrest him, but the system implanted in him prevents him from touching OCP men, so the vice president can escape. Badly wounded due to the ED-209 attack (big and large, but quite dumb as a robot) and by his old police colleagues on Jones' orders, Robocop is saved by the old colleague Anne Lewis (played by Nancy Allen), who will also help him regain all his old memories and will once again address him as Murphy.

The last part of the movie is ultra-spectacular: Robocop/Murphy and Lewis confront Boddicker’s gang, killing them one by one (I recommend everyone to enjoy the end of Emil, the one on the van, he first ends up in toxic waste emerging completely deformed and then is practically split in half by his boss's car on the move). Murphy has nothing left but to head to the OCP building and kill Jones, who has taken the old president hostage, and to the question of who is that strange robot with the human face, Robocop answers by stating his name is Murphy, for the first time after his death and resurrection as a machine.

A very violent and raw film, I highly advise against it for anyone under 14 as there are some quite horrific scenes (perhaps the worst is Murphy's massacre, but also poor Kinney riddled with bullets and the deformed Emil emerging from the toxic waste tank are quite intense), but absolutely brilliant in its comedic elements. Verhoeven cleverly seeks out comedy in every situation, even the bloodiest, often descending into the grotesque, and besides this, he levels a harsh critique of American society. The cynicism of the worst kind pervades the film and everyone, from the richest to the poorest, is insanely driven by the pursuit of profit; note how for the realization of Delta City, the shiny side of the American society’s coin, prey to the most ferocious criminality and utterly incapable of arresting most criminals, the OCP, an international organization that practically replaces the ideal of the American State, has no scruples to achieve its goal.

If you're in the mood for an hour and a half or so of action, blood, cynicism and raw sarcasm, well "Robocop" is the film for you. Believe me, once you’ve seen it, you won't stop watching it again because it’s so beautiful; however, the subsequent chapters are to be avoided, as they are really low quality and perhaps even more violent than this one. But violence is not enough if the film doesn't deliver messages, which happens in "Robocop 2" and "3", lacking that taste of the grotesque and rawness that the Amsterdam director managed to give to this gem that shines among science fiction films. Highly recommended to everyone, except for small children, with a small warning: due to the strong violent content and the very acid critique of American society, it may not appeal to everyone. Nevertheless, a small great masterpiece, Verhoeven will never reach these levels again. Among the top 5 science fiction films of all time, for sure.