#16 — Total Recall
This is part of an illustrated countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies. Last week I talked about a movie where action cops learn that home is where the heart is. They learn to live, laugh, love. They learn to keep calm and carry on in the face of murder. (the movie is Lethal Weapon)
Total Recall wasn’t on my list originally because I always thought of it as science fiction first, and action second. It’s similar to how I view Aliens as a horror/thriller above all else, but would gladly put it on the list if the xenomorphs were former CIA operatives that turned to smuggling cocaine on the streets of LV-426, and the only man that could stop them was a space cop named Nico Toscani. It’s the finer details that matter here, we don’t just let anyone with a pulse rifle walk into the Action Countdown. Sometimes these lines get blurred.
Renowned sci-fi author Philip K. Dick penned the original story, which is titled “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale”. I know I read it, but ironically, barely remember it. PKD seemed to be warning about the dangers of merging human desire with technological possibility. If you wanted safety, you got an authoritarian surveillance state. If you wanted money, you got a corporate controlled economy where even oxygen has a price. And if you wanted your wildest dreams to come true, you could just visit Rekal Inc. and get that date with Rachel Ticotin — but it might result in brain damage.
The premise of this story, as it relates to the film adaptation, is perfect. It’s about a guy who fantasizes about being an action hero (or maybe it’s about an action hero that thought he was a regular guy). It also stars one of the most definitive action stars of all time, which makes his potentially repressed identity as a sleeper cell agent very funny, and his fantasies as an everyman even more so. Everything about the film, right down to the casting, feels surreal and dreamlike. Verhoeven seems to understand that the fun isn’t in figuring out which version is true, but in casting just enough doubt on either possibility — of which there would be tremendous, sometimes hilariously tragic consequences. The indulgence is the point.
There’s a serious version of this movie starring some character actor that draws you into the suspense and drama of a man who suddenly fights like Jason Bourne and gets caught up in some grand conspiracy, and maybe it’s directed by Wolfgang Peterson (which naturally means the whole disaster subplot about clean air would be the central focus). No thanks, not interested.
In the Arnold/Verhoeven version of this story, Quade’s renewed (or simply new) memories give us a hilarious close-up of Arnold’s face as he screams about his cover being blown. He doesn’t pick locks with pins and put guards in sleeper holds — he impales them with lab equipment and breaks his restraints like King Kong. He also says things like “SEE YOU AT DUH PAWTY, RICKTUH”, which is one of my favorite one-liners of all time (an important metric for this list) and something no other actor could pull off while holding a pair of severed arms. What I’m saying is, we got the best possible version of this movie, the result of a chemistry that not even Reed Richards could replicate.
The film definitely plays up the action parts of the fantasy, but by dialing up all the lizard brain aesthetics of 80s action cinema, it contributes to the idea of false realties and implanted memories. The first time I saw this movie I felt like I was getting away with something. It still kind of feels that way, because nothing like this is being made anymore. It isn’t just squibs and headshots — it’s miniatures, matte paintings, and some of the best work of fx legend Rob Bottin’s career.
This isn’t my personal favorite Arnold movie, but it wouldn’t be crazy to argue it’s his best. The director/actor pairing creates a singularity of frenzied, adrenaline-fueled fantasy beyond anything else in its wheelhouse. Arnold has worked with John Milius and Walter Hill. They play up the hyper-masculinity of their stories to mythologize and deify their characters. He’s worked with John McTiernan and James Cameron, who are shrewd and calculating enough to turn the actors’ weaknesses into strengths, and at times, subvert audience expectations. Verhoeven is a whole different animal. His has a cheeky self awareness that sometimes escapes people, and a wild streak that belies his sensitivity. He will indulge, and find humor in everything, but he can also empathize with characters in the midst of comic book absurdity. There’s a glee and a truthfulness to his work — skewering some of the ugliest aspects of humanity in the most entertaining way possible. That’s an amazing talent.
It’s an Onion News article of a story that still feels like an action movie at all times. It’s paced perfectly. It moves like a runaway train, and even when characters are delivering exposition, it feels like the whole world could explode at any moment. Arnold leaves almost every new location in ruins. Train stations, bars, and mining colonies all get introduced like an episode of Star Trek and say goodbye like a pair of Mission Impossible glasses.
Quade’s boyish fantasy to get the girl, kill the bad guys, and save the planet requires a heightened reality. It’s the perfect groundwork for action filmmaking. It allows everything to be louder, funnier, faster, stronger. It gives us a hero that can achieve the impossible, and a villain willing to do the unthinkable (shout-outs to Cohaagen’s romantically involved pair of henchman. More hench-couple representation!). In watching the movie, we take part in the same fantasy, and in the end, we get a blue sky on Mars — right before Jerry Goldsmith’s fantastic score teases an uncertainty that the dream was ever achieved.
