The stamp of corruption.
Midway through RoboCop (1987) I finally came to understand why I was enjoying what really seems like a slight action movie: it’s addressing one of the premier issues in today’s society, the problem of confusing the responsibilities and processes of one sector with another.
OCP is a company with its fingers in many fields, and it’s just signed an agreement with Detroit to provide law enforcement services, in return for the right for total renovation rights over portions of Detroit. Their newest offering is an automated robot, fully armed. One small problem: on its debut, it shoots and kills an OCP employee. That project is suspended, allowing another project involving a man/robot hybrid to proceed. And the man?
A dead cop.
They call it RoboCop.
He’s quite the success until he discovers that one of the senior managers of OCP is responsible for the death of another manager – and upon trying to arrest the guilty party, he finds his programming has a hidden constraint – senior managers of OCP may never be arrested by their own products.
Some might call this corruption, but to my mind it’s really just a corporate safeguard. After all, the corporation cannot afford to be disrupted by its own forces over what is really an internal mattter … right?
This makes RoboCop a graphic illustration of the problems that can occur when permitting a private company to intrude into governmental responsibilities. The clashing codes of conduct, morality if you’re daring, dangerously degrades the efficiency and trustworthiness of the service, and we can see why, if we have the wit.
There’s also a lovely scene following his discovery of the constraint. He escapes the rival robot that was set on him by the rogue senior manager, but on exiting the stairwell, he finds the OCP police force waiting for him, and as they shoot at him, the impacts force him into a dance of bruised innocence that seems to convey a sense of betrayal. As RoboCop, he is above corruption, and for having such a morality, he is subjected to the forces of death by those who would benefit from manipulating the system. In some odd way, it’s a tragic scene, from which he escapes only because of those cops who still cling to the precepts of law enforcement honor.
Eventually, RoboCop avenges himself on the gang that killed him, and the senior manager gets his comeuppance. While the story is straightforward and fairly predictable, it has enough humor to make it worth watching to the end. So if you find yourself at loose ends, want to watch something straightforward, and have never seen RoboCop, it might be worth your time.
