Arnold Total Recall
January 20th, 2010“They stole his mind, now he wants it back”
Total recall is a Hollywood movie made in 1990. It features Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone in the lead role, and is said to be based on Phillip Dick’s famous story, ‘We can remember It for you wholesale’. It was directed by Paul Verhoeven and the adaptation from the short story to the screen play was done by screen writers Ronald Schusett, Don O’Bannon and Gary Oldman.
The movie is set in the year 2084, where in Schwarzenegger is a construction worker, who has been seeing dreams about exploring planet Mars with a brunette woman. If starts off with a certain company known as Rekall, which sells imaginary adventures to people by implanting false memories in their brains. Schwarzenegger plans to undertake one such adventure wherein he shall play the ready-made role of ‘James Bond in space’, which would be full of thrill, excitement and adventure. But just before the adventure embarks, a dark secret is revealed to Schwarzenegger by his co-worker that Rekall has suffered failure many times, and the trip may result into damaging the brains permanently.
As the trip is about to start, Quaid, i.e. the character portrayed by Schwarzenegger starts yelling, and suffers a break down. As a result of all this, he tries to break free and escape. At first, it is evident to the audience that he may be trying to act the ‘spy’ part of his memory implants, but later, the shocking truth is found out that Quaid already had those memories in him, but had been erased by someone.
After being inhibited, Quaid returns home, and is absolutely blank about the memories of ever goin to Rekall. His old friends try to kill him, and even his wife has similar plans. As time passes, he comes to know that he is a former Mars intelligence agent named Hauser, and thus, he goes to a colony on Mars to find out the truth. Once there, he befriends Melina, a girl of the night who works for a corrupt administrator Vilos Cohaggen. He sets to find out why Vilos Cohaggen is after is life….but also starts questioning the fact that which is his two identities is actually true.