Repo Men

When the economic crisis first hit, Clive Owen came out with The International, a film about an evil bank. With the health care crisis now in full swing, Jude Law has come out with Repo Men, a film about evil health care people. Repo Men is good, but seems to have come out a bit early because this seems like a perfect summer film.

I cannot remember a time when Jude Law was this much fun. Fresh off a turn as Watson in Guy Ritchie's superb Sherlock Holmes, Law plays Remy, who work for the The Union, a company that supplies artificial body parts. If you can't pay for them, The Union sends Remy and his best mate Jake (Forrest Whitaker) after you. They cut you open and take the parts back. Its a bloody good time for all.

Law is such a badass in this film. You would think a role like this would go to Jason Statham, but a renowned actor like Law, who really isn't used to being the badass, plays the part very well. With the amount of blood and violence and quick takes, you would think this flick was made by the Neveldine/Taylor duo. First time director Miguel Sapochnik does the film well, but you'd like to see what an experienced director could do with it.

While Repo Men falls short with some of its blood for the sake of blood scenes and some acting shortcomings (Forrest is good but has too little to do), it makes up for it with Law and its twist ending. Go catch Repo Men. You'll rip your heart out if you don't.

All in all, I found this movie quite a disappointment. I have a soft spot for sci-fi, and as several others have commented, Jude Law is a good reliable actor in sci-fi roles. But this movie seems awkwardly assembled, not quite thought-out, and a bit too proud of itself to be taken seriously. Throughout the film, at what seem to be important developmental points or even plot twists, there are one-liners tossed out with great sincerity, which in most cases either sound silly, pretentious, intellectually impoverished, or simply misplaced in this film. The first scene of the film, for instance, we are given a summarization of the 'Schroedinger's Cat' experiment, complete with some of the horrible logic underlying the film--- 'if something isn't definably dead or alive, then it must be both'. The fact that this statement shows a misunderstanding of both the scientific and philosophic merit of the experiment isn't the problem, because even incorrect junk science can be a good vehicle in a movie. The problem is that there's no reason to bring this up in the first place. the movie doesn't tackle whether things are dead or alive, whether being comprised of 'rented organs' is an crisis of existential definitions or what have you. The reference is just thrown in there to sound smart, to seem thoughtful, when the film is anything but. And this sort of pseudo intellectual posturing contaminates the movie.

The whole film's pace feels quite forced, as well. Jude Law seems underutilized. One can't help but wonder if he got drunk for the majority of the shooting for this film. When his wife leaves him, there's almost no emotion in the scene. When twenty minutes later our hero has decided to dedicate his eternal love to a street girl he finds attractive, there's really no chemistry whatsoever--- but apparently the movie insists that there be a love interest, and so it's just thrown in there, pointlessly. Because even in this day and age, it's apparently impossible to propose a hero character without a token damsel in distress.

Then there's the kind of gratuitous and uncomfortable 'surgical sex' scene. It's apparent that whoever choreographed it thought they were being clever, but the whole thing just seems like an attempt to force some sort of correlation between sex and surgical procedures that really just felt misplaced, and kind of heavy-handed. Granted, it has a purpose within the plot, but it's basically a slice of experimental film amid a sci-fi action flick, and like a lot of experiments, it fails.

There are some positive points to the film. While Jude Law's acting is a disappointment, Forrest Whittaker delivers a solid role. The action scenes are quite good, and while the overbearing presence of music makes some of it feel like a weird music video, it's nonetheless well-choreographed fighting and slashing. Some of the sets are good, although a fair number of sets and sequences seem blatant rip-offs of 'Brazil' (to say nothing of the ending)...

A pretty mindless flick. It's better than watching dust settle on your screen. A prettily-packaged emptiness.

Well, if you have watched the musical "REPO", then you definitely want to sink your teeth in to "Repo Men", as they are right up the same alley. Of course, one being a musical and one being a movie, but still, they are basically about the same thing.

The story of "Repo Men" is straight forward and easy to follow. If you can't pay your bills on your implants, they will be reclaimed by The Union, and here comes the repo men into play. (Just like in the musical "REPO").

There is a steady stream of constant action and thrills throughout this movie, so you are never left bored. And the ending, well that I didn't see coming, that was a really nice touch! I am not spoiling it by saying how it ends, but trust me, it is nice.

The actors in the movie was quite nicely cast. Especially Whitaker and Law play very well opposite one another, they support each other well and the chemistry works quite good.

The effects throughout the movie was nice as well. Do not expect to see a myriad of CGI effects to dazzle even a blind guy! But this movie doesn't really need all that fancy CGI, it does very well with ordinary effects and gimmicks. The scenes and settings were nice, showing a somewhat bleak and lifeless future.

In overall, this is a rather nice movie, but in my opinion, it is not the type of movie that you will watch again once watched. It just doesn't have that quality to it. But still, it is one heck of a movie.

This is a film whose entire storyline – as slim as it is – seems to have been inspired by a sketch in Monty Python's MEANING OF LIFE, which has a sketch of a pensioner losing their liver to a couple of repossession men. Well, those men are brought to life in this futuristic thriller which fills its running time with gobbets of surgical gore and a man-on-the-run narrative that will be overly familiar to even the most intermittent of modern film viewers. Jude Law is cocky and rather irritating as a brutish, cold-hearted rent collector type who finds himself on the run when his former colleagues turn against him.

The look and feel of the film is very similar to Spielberg's MINORITY REPORT, albeit with a lower budget, and it's clear that there are some major problems here. The whole thing takes nearly an hour to get going before it starts to pick up momentum and become interesting, and then it seems to finish all too quickly. Also, for a movie advertised as an action thriller, it's rather light on the action; a stunning, OLDBOY-inspired corridor fight at the climax helps to make up for this, but it's not quite enough. And don't get me started on the absolutely stupid twist ending, which sucks out all the visceral enjoyment the viewer has just taken from the production.

Despite the flaws and general coldness of the production, it's difficult to dislike REPO MEN. It's clear that this was written and created by young, slightly immature men content to riff on previously explored topics rather than delivering genuinely innovative product, but it still delivers on a superficial level; you want to know what happens next, and the thrills satisfy. The cast are perfunctory: Alice Braga and Liev Schreiber make virtually no impact in highly predictable supporting roles, and while Forest Whitaker gets a little more of a look in, even he doesn't get a great deal to work with. Law, meanwhile, plays it off-hand and it doesn't work; he needed to be much more tortured for a role like this. It's not bad as it stands, but it could have been a whole lot more with some real maturity applied to the premise.

Can't believe all the lowball ratings on here. It's a solid sci-fi, it's not going to blow you away but you're not going to be sorry you watched it.