'Reasons to watch' takes a look at great films featuring law. This week it's the turn of the original Robocop, in which a metal policeman teaches lawyers how to navigate the shark tank of professional life.

At first glance Robocop doesn't have a lot in common with a lawyer. He's mostly made of iron, he spends seconds rather than days in a data room thanks to a metal spike which extends from one of his knuckles and plugs directly into computers, and he shoots pretty much everything. But look beyond the chrome dome and the hyper-violent trappings, and at its core Robocop is about something very close to a lawyer's heart. Robocop's bosses wipe his memory and reprogram him to work all the time. He only gets a break when he's clamped into a chair to be fed a paste containing all the nutrients he needs. His quest is to try to leave work and remember his family. Robocop is about the fight for a reasonable work/life balance.

Robocop, unwittingly signing out of the Working Time Directive

And what a working life it is. In Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece the corporate environment is a playground for turbo-charged arseholes. It's no mistake Richard Nixon was hired to promote Robocop's home video release. The film's potrayal of white-collar bastards will strip away any illusions you might have about how to get ahead from behind a desk. When the credits rolled in cinemas, viewers binned their hippy ideals and sold their own mothers to the glue factory. It's why you've got no granny and a framed photo of a Pritt Stick.

This man made them do it

King of the slimeballs is Dick Jones, Senior Vice President of Omni Consumer Products. He's closely followed by Bob Morton, an ambitious executive who wants to replace him. Their feud ends badly, but thanks to Robocop you don't have to. Simply do what Jones' victim doesn't - before you badmouth your boss in the office loos, check they aren't sitting in one of the cubicles. Robocop is quite clear what will happen otherwise: a nasty man will visit your prostitute party (hey, it was 1987) and ruin it with guns and bombs.

He's here about your knees

Robocop is more than a guide to the greasy pole, though. It's also a very effective stress ball. Carry a video of Robocop on your person and you'll only ever be 78 minutes away from the cathartic release of a punk getting dunked in toxic waste and burst by a car.

"Maybe it's Maybelline"

And as for client functions, well, Robocop also contains invaluable pointers on etiquette. In the film's wine-tasting scene, psychotic baddy Clarence Boddicker jams two fingers into another man's glass and sucks them. Moments later Robocop bursts in and throws Boddicker through a window. The message is clear. Boddicker also flobs blood on a document and sticks chewing gum on a secretary's nameplate. His gruesome end at Robocop's hands makes the attentive viewer aware that this is all poor behaviour.

Monitor of soirees

Robocop features lots of great work from top-tier character actors, but Peter Weller's performance stands above them all. For the role, he took mime lessons, insisted on being called 'Robo' and, in scenes where he shot people, he listened to Peter Gabriel's 'Red Rain' on his in-suit Walkman. All things that a lawyer should do.

Weller's never topped his potrayal as the ultimate silver fox, and perhaps he never will: after filming ended he was mistaken for a pile of metal pipes and put into storage. But you can still benefit from his greatest role, and if he ever does burst through a dry-stone wall to fulfil his classified fifth objective, you'll be able to thank him for your much-improved career.

[5. Infiltrate German parties]