FILM REVIEW: TOTAL RECALL

Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) in Total Recall.

Dismembering the way we were

By Don Simpson

It has been a very long time since I have watched Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall, primarily because I find any film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger to be overwhelmingly unwatchable. So, as a fan of Philip K. Dick's source short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," I was actually kind of excited when I first heard that Len Wiseman was adapting the same Dick short story. Okay, "excited" might be too strong of a word -- I hated Wiseman's embarrassingly flawed Live Free or Die Hard and I am not a fan of his underwhelming Underworld franchise -- but at least Schwarzenegger was not going to be in this adaptation. At least Colin Farrell seemed to be a somewhat legitimate choice for the leading role, so this adaptation had that going for it. Of course, by naming his new film Total Recall, Wiseman does risk the assumption that this is a remake. Like I said, it has been a long time since I have watched Verhoeven's Total Recall, but if my memory serves me correctly, Wiseman's interpretation is drastically different. Wiseman's film is also drastically different from Dick's short story. Unfortunately, it still does not come anywhere near the same intellectual levels of complexity as Dick's short story.

Douglas Quaid (Farrell) lives in a futuristic world in which the tyrannical ruling elite live on one side of the world and the working class lives on the other; the rest of the world is a vast post-apocalyptic wasteland. Every day, Douglas must travel via a tunnel through the center of the Earth to work on an assembly line in a factory in which a robot army is being constructed for the ruling elite. Douglas' wife, Lori (Kate Beckinsale), is a police officer. Together they are cogs in the tyrannical machine, helping the elite become richer while their own lives on the other side of the world are far from idyllic.

There is no escape for Douglas. There is no room for upward mobility; he and Lori will never live on the other side of the world. Douglas needs something to free him from his lackluster life so he turns to REKALL, a company that implants false memories into its clients allowing them to fantasize of a better life. Today we use cinema and television to escape reality, in the future we will use implanted memories. Sounds great, huh? Yeah, not so much.

Douglas' visit to REKALL unleashes a whole mess of shit. From that moment onward, he finds himself tirelessly running and fighting for the remainder of the film. Wiseman kicks everything into overdrive, leaving the story's inherent politics and philosophy in the dust. Suddenly, Total Recall turns into just another mindless action flick and once again Dick's heady original content is tossed aside for good old fashioned escapist entertainment.

FILM REVIEW: HORRIBLE BOSSES

A scene from Horrible Bosses.

Hardly working

By Don Simpson

A lot of people have had horrible bosses and a lot of people are afraid of quitting their horrible jobs because of the high unemployment rates and stagnant job market. Director Seth Gordon’s (The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters; Freakonomics) Horrible Bosses counts solely on these facts to draw people to the box office so they can pay outlandish ticket prices with the money they have earned from the jobs in which they feel hopelessly stuck. Pure and simple, Horrible Bosses is an escapist fantasy for and about the disenfranchised white middle-class workforce.

As is the trend with most Hollywood comedies of late, Horrible Bosses is based upon an idea that is as flimsy as a Saturday Night Live sketch and stretched out well beyond plasticity for 100 minutes. Technically, the narrative is comprised of a rough, mostly linear, outline of vignettes that begins with three haphazardly cross-cut stories about the unbelievable horribleness of Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale’s (Charlie Day) jobs or, more specifically, the unbelievable horribleness of their bosses, Mr. Harken (Kevin Spacey), Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell) and Dr. Harris (Jennifer Aniston), respectively. From there, the three guys begin to discuss and then foolhardily attempt to act upon the notion that if they murder their bosses their lives would be a hell of a lot better. After promptly shying away from a handsome man soliciting golden showers, the guys choose Motherfucker Jones (Jamie Foxx) to be their "murder consultant." Ridiculous, I know, but at least some of the dialogue is witty and funny.

Farrell relies upon a goofy prosthetic comb-over and coked-out glaze to draw laughs just as Aniston uses her ample bosom and trashy mouth to shock the audience into submission. Speaking of breasts and filthy pie holes, the women of Horrible Bosses (specifically Aniston and Julie Bowen’s character) are represented as one-dimensional sex objects -- unless, of course, they (specifically Lindsay Sloane’s character) are lulled into a happy daze by an engagement ring.

The definition of rape is repeatedly brought into question as is the ridiculousness of sex offender lists -- though both topics are bent over a barrel and shown the fifty states, if you know what I mean? (Hell, I do not even know what that means!) Toyota is mocked and ridiculed; the protagonists are lightly made fun of for being fumbling racists; pussies are scary; the Americanization (at least in name) of Indian telephone-support representatives is critiqued; and there is a relentless barrage of pop culture references, including blatant nods to Strangers on a Train, Good Will Hunting and Snow Falling on Cedars, of which some work better than others.

Horrible Bosses is definitely not as well-written or funny as Bridesmaids, but its certainly better than most of the other Hollywood comedies of 2011. If anything, I bet this film is much better than Zookeeper -- Horrible Bosses’ comedic nemesis this week at the box office. Of course, that is not saying much.