| Capt. Awesome: “Repo Men” was a lot of things: It was creepy, sometimes well-acted, terribly written, fast-paced, a hypothetical window into an overcrowded future where corporations rule the world, but mostly it was horrifyingly violent. And a bloody slaughter-fest is just dandy from time to time, but this did so at the cost of plot, which is kind of important when telling a story. Our protagonist, Remy, Jude Law, makes his living removing prosthetic organs from people on behalf of his employer, The Union, after the recipients can’t pay the astronomical sums for them. That sounds like a difficult medical procedure that requires years of training to perform. What it actually consists of is tagging a hapless individual with a stun dart or bashing them over the head, and then ripping open the sack of meat like a kid at Christmas armed with a scalpel, and just pulling out whatever organ needs to be repossessed. This, as one would imagine, generally leaves the individual feeling less than alive. How this is legal is left for audiences to figure out. His sidekick, whom he’s known since their pre-Union military days — though no one explains Jude Law’s British accent in the U.S. military, but that’s another issue altogether — Jake, Forest Whitaker, has a malfunctioning moral compass. One minute, he’s Remy’s best friend — they work side-by-side, spend time together after work, watch sports on the weekend, family barbecues — and the next minute he’s… Well, read the next paragraph. As the film’s trailer shows, Remy is injured on the job and requires a new heart, which he — wait for it — can’t afford! Cue dramatic music. The trailer explains that about as well as the film does. He’s hurt on company time, using company equipment, doing a company job, and then requires a company product, so instead of giving it to him for free for years of service, or at least giving him one hell of an employee discount, they decide to hunt him down for irony’s sake. And Jake is forced to “repo” his best friend. Oh, the internal conflict! There’s also no way for a “running from the bad people” movie can exist without a shoehorned romance story, and this is no exception. Remy has a wife who only serves to embody the phrase, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” and a son who… just kind of exists. But they’re only on the screen for about five minutes before Remy’s kicked out of the house, and promptly falls head-over-heels for Beth, Alice Braga, a drug-addicted homeless woman who had even less screen time than the wife. And the film never explains why the hell he cares about her, or why she needs to exist, as she seems to only slow Remy down. It felt like there were a couple of scenes that set up the relationship that never made it out of the editing room. And did I say that this thing was bloody? Oh, man, the body count is staggering for a non-war film. There are dozens of gutted corpses that were victims of The Union, and just as many stabbed and shot Union employees on Remy’s rampage to right the wrong that has been done to him, and to bring down the proverbial man. I can’t even begin to explain the gruesome and somehow sexual climactic scene between Remy and Beth, except that it involves a lot of drug use, kissing, touching, oh, and cutting each other open. The ending is painfully obvious if one pays attention to the brief flashes of dialogue between murder scenes, and it left me wanting to repossess my $10 from the theater. Overall, this film was ham-handed and predictable, and it substituted storytelling for gore. I say steer clear of this bloody mess. I give it 2/5 repossessed livers. — Capt. Awesome | The 'Jack: Well acted, original, amazing writing and an overall good movie — these things will never be used to describe "Repo Men." Rather, it is a combination of gruesome violent images and nonsensical story. The idea of repossessing someone’s organs makes about as much sense as putting a chicken behind the wheel of a car. The only result you are going to get is a bunch of dead bodies and people asking, “God, why?” That is "Repo Men." It opens up with Remy, Jude Law, “repossessing” someone’s organs, which in this world is a legal way to murder, and then moves on to The film has no idea what it is doing the whole way through. Jake, Forest Whittaker, is a good guy, then the bad guy and back to the good guy. Remy is married, then his wife leaves him and the next thing you know he is in love with a drug addict. If you want a sex scene that will make you celibate, than look no further. "Repo Men" is for you. Forest Whittaker is usually good but he is forced to deliver lines that are so blatantly obvious that a child could see what is happening. Quick side note, do not let a child see this movie unless you want to scar them for life. If that is the case, grab some popcorn and set your child down while I call social services. The director, Miguel Sapochnik, makes no attempt to develop character or story. It feels like whole scenes developing the relationship between Remy and Beth, Alice Braga, were removed because they didn’t have enough murder, or sex, in it. Sapochnik seemed to be guiding us from one gruesome death to another, like when a man’s head is crushed by a falling typewriter (Retrospective spoiler alert). On the note of falling typewriters, first off classic Acme win, and secondly, this is supposedly the future so what is a typewriter even doing there? I probably couldn’t find one in a dump nowadays. Enough chitchat about typewriters, back to the lack of story. When a writer puts his main characters in a situation that seems to be inescapable, like writers Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner did in the screenplay for "Repo Men," the audience wants something clever and unexpected but in the case of "Repo Men" all the audience gets is a poorly set up cliché. I won’t ruin the ending, but it rhymes with “they’re in a dream.” If you have any sense at all you will stay away from "Repo Men." I give it 2/5 Repossessed Livers. – The ’Jack  |
-Capt.
you said "Oh, the internal conflict!" in your review. That is hilarious, you know, because of the whole repossessing organs thing. You are hilarious.