“The threat of nuclear confrontation in South Africa escalated today when the ruling white military government of that besieged city-state unveiled a French-made neutron bomb and affirmed its willingness to use the three-megaton device as the city’s last line of defense.”
This is the news report in the actual first minute of RoboCop. Apartheid had fallen, the last retreat of capital is considering nuclear annihilation with the help of Europe. Reminder, RoboCop was made in '87, written before. If anyone has read some of the shadier history of apartheid SA at the time (bio-weapons, UK/western involvement etc) this is more of an oversimplification than something actually far-fetched.
Paul Verhoeven gets a lot of praise for big, bold, anti-capitalist and anti-fash themes. He should get more praise for the details.
Verhoeven should come back to Hollywood for one final teamup with Neumeier.
Agreed, although Verhoeven absolutely elevated his work.
I choose to believe Danny DeVito radicalised him when he was a staff writer on Taxi.
He didn’t write it
You’re right, but he’s the incredibly specific director, the more international criticism of US imperialism is far more consistent with his work than the two screenwriters, and also Verhoeven had final cut (with some edits for extended gore he agreed to for classification).
Not really, the same guy wrote Starship Troopers. The rest of Verhoeven’s movies aren’t like this, they’re just pulp.
Watch his not American stuff
Anything specific you can recommend?
Soldier of Orange, All Things Pass (TV fil. Sequel to soldier of Orange sorta), Spetters and The 4th Man are all pretty solid
The next few minutes where the cops get the shit beat out of them are really, really great.
Watching a cop get his arm blown off, thinking ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes!!’
