@MickyMac said:

With him wanting Quaid alive on Earth.

Didn't occur to Richter, Lori, Harry and the others that Cohaagen was holding something back and had something planned with Quaid?

Richter:

• Doesn't think that shooting out the windows on Mars, where there is zero air outside, might be a problem.

• Thinks its better to kill three-boobs in anger instead of simply questioning someone else.

• Chooses to fight Quaid and Melina in a room full of pillars instead of simply guarding the doors at either end of the room (which only has two openings)

Laurie

• Tries to shoot Quaid in the dark from a long distance rather than standing right in front of the door and shooting him point-blank.

• After disarming Melina, decides to fight her hand-to-hand when she has a gun in her back pocket.

Harry

• Doesn't think to follow Quaid to prevent him from going into REKALL in the first place

• Decides to kill Quaid in a public building

• Decides to monologue before killing him and stands close enough to be kicked

Look, these aren't exactly the smartest people here.

It was a bit odd Cohaagen had some uninformed buffoons under his wing because all they did was nearly screw up everything he had planned.

@MickyMac said:

It was a bit odd Cohaagen had some uninformed buffoons under his wing because all they did was nearly screw up everything he had planned.

The curse of the action movie. Make them too dumb and your audience loses the suspension of disbelief. Make them too smart and you disarm the movie. I'd call this crew "functionally dumb." They try to add explanations in the screenplay--Richter is upset that his wife is getting boned by Quaid, wife goes easy on Quaid because she DOES "like it," and Harry's a shlub--but it's pretty clear they designed them this way to drive the action.