Taut and often gripping future-set thriller with a real idea at its heart and a genuinely pleasing film making ethic to it.

Rating: 7/10 (16 February 2013)

I suppose by the time Total Recall has gone all gung-ho on us, what with its shootouts and second unit stuff booting out the earlier chase; danger and mystery of the newfound scenario our lead found themselves in, we can kind of forgive it out of its subversive energy. That is to say, the overhanging ambiguity surrounding whether any of what we're actually seeing is real plagues the piece throughout. If it isn't real, it's somebody's dream and therefore one would expect to be presented with stereotypical espionage elements and arrays of action and shoot outs come the final act. It's all here: the mysterious phone call from someone who wants to help; the checking in to a hotel (somewhat mirthfully named "The Hilton"); the jetting off (as it were) to the exotic locales and the rendez-vous' with the good looking women. And yet, how could anything of this ilk set this far into the future running on this premise POSSIBLY play out any differently? Therein lies the magic of this 1990 Paul Verhoeven film: long after one has had the arguments on whether it's a subversive master stroke of film making or merely a cheap sci-fi relying on age old concepts. On top of all else, it's a cracking narrative which in itself requires a careful, patient eye and mind so as to work out if everything holds together.
Arnold Schwarzenegger steps back from playing murderous machines and macho commando group commanders to fill a frailer role. For a large part of the project, Schwarzenegger's character hasn't got the slightest idea what's going on and he's in quite a bit of danger out of the fact a group of highly skilled government agents are armed to the teeth and coming after him. He plays a construction worker, Douglas Quaid; a middle aged, everyday kind of a guy with an apartment of his own and a wife in Lori, played by Sharon Stone. We're in the future, a far off future whereby the planet of Mars has been colonised; is mostly inhabited by mutants and one can even clear off to Saturn should one feel like a holiday. Running a pneumatic drill at a quarry with best friend Danny de Vito by your side; pushing the subway to work every day and seemingly not being able to get away from the news broadcasts of trouble and strife between rebels and government agents on Mars, however, is wearing him down. Through the Recall of the title, Quaid hits upon a business who can put him in a chair for a few days; wire him up to a machine and insert "memories" that have him think he's done something incredible during a holiday away. Something, however, goes wrong and he thinks he's living the dream (so to speak) without the final programming having been carried out – thus, an adventure involving all sorts of new and exciting people, as well as new and exciting places, kicks off and we have in our midst one of the smarter, better sci-fi/action films of its era.
Michael Ironside plays the man charged with capturing Quaid, Richter; someone who's already an item with the undercover operative fulfilling the role of Quaid's wife and there's an amusing insinuation Richter is going after Quaid with the intent instead on killing him because of this. The action eventually shifts to Mars and a red light district already shrouded in political turmoil. Waltzing into a brothel to some music from Sonic the Hedgehog, we're introduced to Melina (Ticotin); a young woman who works there who breaks the mould in her appearance amidst the scarred, soft bodied characters including dwarfs; facially imbalanced personnel and three breasted others. It is from here the pair of them begin to occupy the frame for an extended time, taking on the sleazy governing official Cohaagen (Cox) whose own plans to wreck some serious hassle on the Martian inhabitants loom.
Structure and pacing are crucial to the film; never are we overwhelmed with details and revelations, nor do we ever lull in proceedings as new information and such keep flowing. What works is how sheltered we, the audience, are from this strange new future of automated taxis and interplanetary travel. We are spared the external shots of anything gratuitous in this far flung future until Quaid has truly realised he is out of his element, something that aides the disillusionment process on both sides. Director Verhoeven keeps the action moving and the scenarios coming, really taking this premise of someone torn from their existence and thrust into another set of circumstances whilst running with it for an extraordinary amount of time: keeping it fresh, keeping it frightening, keeping it exciting. We forgive the film for its eventual descent into second unit dominated territory. Think hard: the moments from our dreams that are the most intense often happen at the tail end of them, do they not? They are the last thing we dream and the first thing that we remember when we awake. If nothing is real and everything is fake, the movement into the final act whereby intense shootouts and near death experiences are all the rage seems fitting, as this constant dicing with death as the denouement looms intensifies the experience. Either way, when the lead character awakens from this particular episode in the morning, it will be a scream loud enough to awake those not just lying next to them, but in the adjacent homes.