Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: HARDWARE (1990)

From: [email-masked] (Paul-Michael Agapow)
Date: 2 Dec 1996 21:02:12 GMT

HARDWARE
                       A film review by Paul-Michael Agapow
                        Copyright 1996 Paul-Michael Agapow

In a run-down, post-holocaust world a soldier acquires the
remains of a military robot.  He gives part of it to his lover, a
sculptress, unaware that the robot carcass is not completely dead ...

Superficially, as the plot summary above would indicate,
"Hardware" is yet another unstoppable killer piece, movies that
generally only use their genre (be it fantasy, SF or whatever) as
a thin excuse to get some unkillable monster with useful powers
of stealth or disguise chasing our heroes who will die one by one
until a spectacular (and often ambiguous) finale.  Indeed,
sometimes the SF rack at the video store looks like this is the
only idea in science fiction: "Saturn 5", "Split Second",
"Leviathan", "Deep Star Six" ad nauseum.  When competently done,
these banal roots are transcended by the movie having good
atmospheric horror ("Alien"), good action ("Predator") or making
the monster the background for another issue (the infighting of
the station crew in "The Thing").  When badly done, it's just
another slasher flick.

"Hardware" sits, at times uncomfortably, in between.  The
script and scenario are nothing to write home about, but what is
done with them is.  The characters, usually a failing of
slasher-flicks, are well drawn and sympathetic.  A by-the-numbers
video-clip sex scene (pulsing music, slow motion) is interrupted
in a incongruous way that sends up the cliche.  In an age where
people are barricaded into their homes, the (implausible) robot
literally invades the sculptress's home, rebuilding itself with
household items.  Missing the often biblical air that some of
this genre has (e.g.  this character is evil, so they will die),
the robot is also never anthromorphised, staying expressionless,
precise, mechanical and all the more terrifying for it.  The sets
and clothing also avoid the artfully distressed look of many
post-holocaust worlds.  This planet is slowly going down the
drain and has no time for fashion.

It's unfortunate therefore that at the end of it, "Hardware"
doesn't strike out on its own and be more of its own creation.
It's also unfortunate that more work hasn't come from this team.
But "Hardware" is a notch or two above its competitors and brief
about it too.  [**/ok] and walnut icecream on the Sid and Nancy
scale.

"Hardware"
Directed by Richard Stanley.
Starring Dylan McDermott, Stacey Travis, John Lynch.
Released 1990.
94 minutes.

------
paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
[archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/]