Richter Makes No Sense
It's hard to imagine how all the events aspired.
Why would the boss not tell Richter important things, like 'I need Quaid ALIVE at all costs', and still sic him onto chasing Quaid?
Why would Richter NOT recognize Quaid or know him, after ARRANGING the whole thing, even going so far as to lending his gorgeous girlfriend to be his fake wife... to keep an eye on him? None of this makes any sense.
Richter MUST HAVE KNOWN EXACTLY who Hauser and Quaid were, so he would also know the plan, and how important it is to keep him alive - especially considering using his own gosh-darned WIFE as part of the plan was an important point!
Richter would have to have known ALL OF THIS, the whole plan, or what the hell was going on? What did Richter think the plan was? To let his wife have sex with the best friend of the boss... for what?
Also, WHY would anyone like Richter, a completely replaceable, not-special-in-any-way henchman even have access to a gorgeous woman like that?
Wouldn't it make more sense if she was the bossman's harem girl, one of many? I mean, that's why guys like that BECOME powerful, rich, wealthy, etc., so they can be a high-value man, a high-status man, someone that can get the most gorgeous women left and right without breaking a sweat.
But Richter? What? Why would SHE choose Richter? No wonder she took the first opportunity to sleep with someone better.. (Hauser is higher in hierarchy, so higher status, more valuable man)
Why would Richter - once this mediocre, angry, emotional henchman finally has access to a gorgeous woman - EVER just casually offer this 1980s megababe to sleep with someone Richter obviously hates and wants to kill throughout the whole movie and even punches in the face?
Why? What is his motive? If a regular low-value man, like Richter, gets a woman like THAT, they are going to hold on to her, and not immediately sell her out to some austrian-looking bodybuilder with amnesia! What the heck kind of sense does Richter's choice here make?
IF Richter didn't know Hauser, and that Hauser was the bossman's best friend (and this is SO ridiculous to even think), then why does he not act more SURPRISED, when the truth is revealed? As in, "Wait, what? This guy is your FRIEND?"
He accepts it WAY too easily for someone that does not know Hauser and the bossman's relationship with him.
The more you think about Richter-Bossman-Hauser-Quaid-relationship triangle (well, it really is a triangle.. sort of), then add the woman into the mix, the more you realize none of it makes any sense.
Who the heck wrote this tripe?
I mean, it MIGHT make sense THAT it makes no sense, if it's all a 'dream/psychosis', but it's impossible for the events to BE dream/psychosis as much as it's impossible for them to be real.
This movie drops the ball with this stuff, because instead of making it so that you CAN make up your own mind whichever side you want it to be, and the movie supports it, it makes it IMPOSSIBLE for it to be either.
Instead of giving possibilities to both sides, it ELIMINATES possibilities from both sides.
It can't be a dream, because Quaid dreamed of the very woman BEFORE he went to Total Recall, and because the SAME GUY is shown on the TV ad that later comes to try to 'rescue' Quaid from his psychosis with the red pill and all.
It can't be real, because everything they predict in Total Recall AND during the 'swallow the red pill' sequence, comes true almost literally ("Walls come crashing down", and then they literally do), and because the movie ends in LOBOTOMY white screen.
There are so many other points like this, but the thing is, this movie doesn't make two cakes, but tries to have the cake and eat it, too. It tries to not only have it both ways, but make it impossible to have it either way.
This movie could have been great, but as it stands now, it's a mess, as it not only doesn't take a stance, but destroys the possibility of anyone ever taking a stance.