Total Recall is a 1990 American science fiction film. The film features Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, based on the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”. The film was directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, Jon Povill, and Gary Goldman. It won a Academy Special Achievement Award for its visual effects.
At the time of its production, Total Recall had the largest authorized budget for a film produced by a Hollywood studio. The film’s success confirmed Schwarzenegger as a major box office draw and launched Sharon Stone’s career scoring her a role in the hugely successful Basic Instinct, in 1992, also directed by Verhoeven and produced by Carolco Pictures.
Plot
The story is set in the year 2084. Douglas Quaid is a construction worker who has been experiencing dreams about exploring the planet Mars with a sexy brunette. After seeing an ad from Rekall, a company that sells imaginary adventures by implanting false memories, he decides to buy a “vacation” on Mars from them, one in which he will take a vacation from himself by becoming a spy. Rekall calls it an “ego trip.” Before buying the vacation, Quaid is cautioned by a co-worker that Rekall is risky, and a memory implant failure “lobotomizes people,” in reference to failed memory implants which caused the recipients to suffer permanent brain damage. Quaid hesitates, but disregards this warning.
After the procedure starts, Quaid has a violent outburst and tries to break free, yelling incoherently about people who are coming to kill him. At first, it seems as though he was merely acting out the “spy” portion of the memory implant; however, when it’s confirmed that they hadn’t implanted the memories yet, the doctors at Rekall realize that they are real memories, and someone else had previously erased his memory. After narrowly subduing him, Quaid is returned home with no memories of ever going to Rekall, but then he is attacked by his friends and even his wife, Lori. She tells him that everything he remembers, including their marriage, is false; memories implanted less than two months before. While evading his assailants, he receives a phone call from someone claiming to be a former friend of his who had been asked to deliver a briefcase if he ever disappeared. The briefcase contains false IDs, money, weapons, devices, and a video player, containing a video disk he left to himself beforehand. Watching it, Quaid starts piecing together his past on Mars as a secret agent. Pursued by Richter, a man working for Mars’ administrator, Vilos Cohaagen, Quaid travels to Mars to discover the truth.
On Mars, Quaid finds out that Cohaagen rules an airtight city via his monopoly of air production, and that the poor workers in the city’s slums have been turned into mutants from living within cheaply-produced domes that do not adequately shield against cosmic rays, which Mars’ thin atmosphere does not shield against. He soon makes several allies, a cabbie named Benny and the woman from his dreams, Melina, who reveals that his name is actually Hauser and that he used to be one of Cohaagen’s men but then switched sides and tried to join the underground resistance.
Quaid is later confronted by Lori and Dr. Edgemar, the man from the Rekall commercials, who try to convince him that the adventure he’s been having, his experiences to this point and his future as the leader of mutant resistance have been part of the “vacation” he bought at Rekall. Quaid is now trapped in the ego trip and needs to let them help him recuperate from his paranoia episode. Edgemar offers him a pill to wake up to the truth, the alternative being lobotomization, since he’s still hallucinating in the Rekall facilities. Quaid is almost convinced until he notices that the doctor is sweating with anxiety. Quaid shoots the doctor in the head, before a group of hitmen storm the room and capture him. Melina arrives shortly after and shoots the hitmen, killing them all, but is then disarmed by Lori. The two engage in a vicious fight. Quaid recovers and shoots Lori, killing her.
Melina and Quaid flee and eventually meet resistance leader Kuato, who is revealed to be a mutant growing out of his own brother’s abdomen. With Kuato’s psychic help, Quaid sees a mysterious alien machine in the Martian mines, but then Cohaagen’s forces storm the resistance hideout. Kuato is killed and Quaid and Melina are captured, with the help of Benny, who is actually a traitor. Cohaagen then reveals that Hauser willingly had his mind wiped in order to gain Kuato’s trust; the whole incident, with the exception of Richter’s maniacal pursuit of Quaid and Quaid’s activation at Rekall, was planned. To convince Quaid that this is true, Cohaagen provides another video that Quaid’s alter ego, Hauser, left for himself. Cohaagen reveals that he has decided to eliminate the rebels by cutting off the air supply to their section of the city. He orders Quaid’s mind to be restored to Hauser’s and Melina’s mind be altered to be subservient to Quaid.
Realizing how evil Hauser truly is, Quaid refuses to go back to being him, and manages to escape with Melina. They hurry to reach the alien machine and activate it. Quaid kills Richter and Benny on the way. Quaid activates the machine over Cohaagen’s protests that it will destroy the planet. In the struggle to activate the machine, Cohaagen is ejected onto the airless surface of Mars where he dies of asphyxiation and decompression. Quaid and Melina almost die from exposure to the atmosphere as well, but the alien machine creates a breathable atmosphere that saves them and the mutants just in time to see the forming of a blue sky on Mars.
As Melina says that it is like a dream, Quaid wonders if the whole thing has been real or if he is still in an implanted fantasy. Melina replies “Then kiss me quick before you wake up.” Just as they kiss each other, a bright flash of white light illuminates the screen, and the credits roll.









