REPO MEN(2010)
(Directed by Miguel Sapochnik)
"Psh, this movie needs to be reposessed."- Signed by MartialHorror.
Plot: In the future, artificial organs can extend peoples lives. However, if they can’t pay the bills, the organs are retrieved by repo-men, which usually means that said person dies. When one repo-man is forced to get an artificial heart, he falls behind on the payments and suddenly finds himself being hunted. Review: I did not want to watch this movie in the theaters as soon as I saw the trailer. Sure, it had Jude Law, although granted, I can’t say I’d ever watch a movie just because Jude Law is there. He’s the type of guy who I like watching opposite Robert Downy Jr or Matt Damon, but not on his own. But there is Forest Whitaker, whose career seems to be going down the “Sir" Ben Kingsley route, by delivering one of the finest performances of all time(in Whitaker’s case, “The Last King of Scotland”) and disappointing me with choosing crappy roles in crappy movies nonstop after that. Oddly, when he does pick better projects, either his acting isn't good("Street Kings") or he wasn't necessary("Vantage Point"). He isn't really necessary here. But even with this questionable duo, I still did not want to check this out. To me, the plot was too familiar while being 1,000 times more retarded. But alas, as soon as I decided not to watch this in the theaters, I inevitably doomed myself to watching this in theaters, and do you know what? It sucked just as much as I expected it too. I hate being right. Remy(Jude Law) and Jake(Forest Whitaker) have been best friends since they were kids. Currently they are repo-men of the future, working for Frank(Liev Schreiber). But instead of taking back cars, they take your organs. You see, in the future, they can create artificial organs. But if you can’t pay the bills, repo-men take the organs back…often killing them in the process. They seem to enjoy their work, but this ends when Remy is nearly killed while on the job and needs an artificial heart. After this, he has trouble doing his repo work and falls behind on the bills. Soon, he is on the run from his former co-workers who want his heart. He teams up with Beth(Alice Braga), another runaway who he falls in love with, because every bad movie needs a cliched, tacked on love story. So why does this movie suck? Well, first, what does it do right? Director Sapochnik attempts to out-Kubrick Stanley Kubrick. He loves contrasting scenarios, heavy handed irony and having a dark sense of humor. Is it just me or is imitating Kubrick becoming clichéd? How many movies have to have upbeat or classical music playing while something horrific is going on? It’s no longer shocking or original. Stop it! His pretensions become unintentionally funny when he takes a gruesome surgery(well, sort of…) and turns it into a metaphorical sex scene. It ruins the pacing, becomes laughable and doesn’t make sense in the context of the events. Oh wait, I’m supposed to be positive here……er, well Sapochnik’s arty style of filmmaking does benefit the film occasionally. Sometimes the music and visuals compliment each other nicely, the gore is often shocking(although this leads to one of the films major faults) and the CGI is solid. There are some darkly humorous parts, my favorite being the surgeon who happens to be a kid. She was funny and should’ve been the main character here. NOW THAT WOULD BE A MOVIE. I also have to give credit to all of the actors, who turn in more-than-stellar performances. As I’ve said, I don’t really think Jude Law(Remy) is much of a leading man, but I admire what he went through here. Last we saw him was as the clean cut Watson in “Sherlock Holmes”, but here he transforms his image into a gritty, badass character who tones down his looks. He does good. In fact, this may be one of his better performances, although I still don’t think he has the charisma to carry the film. Forest Whitaker(Jake) has fun with the role and is pretty amusing. Liev Schreiber(Frank) is always cool, and he is perfectly casted here. Alice Braga(Beth) does fine in her paper thin role. Everyone does well except for RZA(T-Bone), who is pretty wooden…..But even there, I didn’t mind him. So why does “Repo Men” suck? Well, there are plenty of reasons, yet can be contained in just a few major faults. The World: Visually, if this can be compared to anything, it’s “Dragonball Evolution”. Not that those worlds look anything alike, but that they’re both amazingly inconsistent, as if they don’t exist within the same world. The city(usually shown during the night) is a corporate, dystopian, looking city that was farted out by “Blade Runner”. Another cliché, as I’m sick of movies trying to look like “Blade Runner”. But then during a scene at Remy’s house, it looks like the normal present. It's bright, suburban and looks like a place where I used to live! Then we have the slums, which are of course, super poor. In the opening credits, some VO mentions that there was some major war, but the audio sort of drowned that explanation out. The war is never really used to explain everything. I think this is supposed to be a “rich gets richer and poor gets poorer” world, but the movie never adequately explains this. It feels much more like the cast and crew were borrowing sets from other movies to contain costs. It does not feel consistent at all. I wouldn't be surprised if these holes were created from post production tampering, but I only review what I see. The Plot: The reason why I thought this looked so stupid was that I couldn’t buy the Government allowing people to get killed for getting behind in the payments. Maybe, just maybe, as a last resort I’d buy it. But wouldn’t they go for their possessions first? How come no one seems to be protesting this? Did the big war that changed so much cause humanity to lose its morality? We don’t know, but I just can’t see this happening. I can buy fantasy, but not stupidity, and you can’t get much more stupid than this. But what did surprise me was how shockingly unoriginal this was. At it’s core, the movie is pretty much the same thing as “Minority Report”, “Blade Runner”, “Equilibrium”, “Fahrenheit 451”, “Hitman” and pretty much EVERY “HUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED” MOVIE EVER MADE! Hell, only a few months ago I saw (the much superior) “Daybreakers”, which was this movie done right. Just replace the vampires with repo-men and the overdo customers with humans, add countless plotholes and crappy characterizations and YOU HAVE THE EXACT SAME MOVIE. Well, the shitty version anyway. I didn’t let “Avatar”(which you also can throw in as being a similar-but-superior movie) get away for its unoriginality, and I certainly won’t let this turd get away with it either. The Characters: In most “Hunter Becomes the Hunted” movies, they create characters who generally are either trapped in a system in which they aren’t sure how to escape, or they’re good people who genuinely believe in it, only to realize its flaws when exposed to the other side. Example, “Minority Report” focuses on the idea of predicting the future and arresting criminals before they commit the crime. A flawed idea, but we understand why the hero supports it. In “Repo Men”, Remy doesn’t seem to like his job, but he does seem to enjoy hurting people. He cracks jokes about killing people and this movie instantly doomed itself when he stunned someone, asked if they’d like an ambulance and knowing the fact that they can’t answer, he takes that as a no. In essence, he’s going to let them die because he’s a dick. When he suddenly has a change of heart when he himself gets an artificial organ, it’s so random and superficial that I wasn’t sure if he developed at all. Then the movie shocks us by having him kill just about everyone who gets in his way. Sometimes I understand it when he kills in self defense, but he will often needlessly kill a security guard or a police officer, even when it’s not necessary. The hell? Considering he’s supposed to be learning the value of human life, he sure is taking a lot of them. Of course, he has this ridiculous, tacked on love story with some junky. In the source material, she was his ex-wife, which makes more sense(even though “falling in love again” stories suck). But here, they just fall in love for the hell of it. Then why did they bother with the relationship between him and his son? Another tacked on, undeveloped relationship. Of course, no one else really comes across as likeable either. Jake, despite having more conflict than Remy, is shown to be somewhat of a sadist(although to be fair, Remy isn’t much better). Remy’s wife is a one-dimensional bitch. Beth is boring and…you know what? The only character who I liked was Frank, THE FREAKING VILLAIN. At least he has a reason for what he does, and even then, the movie writes him poorly. Considering he seems to be friends with Remy, he sure doesn’t have any qualm about killing him. To make a good movie, you need characters who we enjoy watching, and this film REALLY fails in that regard. The Commentary: I’m really beginning to hate social commentary. When social commentary comes across as social commentary, it shows that the movie isn’t as smart as it thinks it is. Stop the forcefeeding! While I enjoyed “District 9”, it was pretty much ruined by its attempt to be something more. How can I take a movie seriously that wants to preach to us the value of human life, while it also takes glee in killing off its human fodder? To me, “District 9” was no more important or complex than “The Condemned”, which was produced by WWF(or whatever name they use these days). Preaching to us that violence is bad, and then taking pleasure in killing all the villains, is just shit. “Repo Men” does this FAR MORE WORSE. I love how Remy thinks about how terrible his job is, thinking about how one of his victims has a wife and kids. But he kills so many people in over-the-top gory ways AFTER THIS. Er, don't any of them have wives or kids? At times, the gore seems inconsistent and nonsensical. At one point, Remy confronts a bunch of executives(I think), who draw knives(the hell?) and Remy takes them out in what can easily be taken as a spoof of “300”, where he slices them up in slow motion. I can’t take your movie seriously if YOU can’t take it seriously. Roger Ebert questions if this is supposed to be a comedy, and I can’t help but wonder the same thing. But I’m not laughing, so go figure. In the end, “Repo Men” has the right talent, and a director who is imaginative at being unimaginative, but it has piss poor characterization in a piss poor plot. It’s a bad idea with bad execution. It collapses under its own weight and becomes a horrendous mess. Granted, I’ve seen worse. At least I never considered leaving the theater, which is something I cant say about “Gamer”(which is FAR worse than this). But it still sucks. I do suspect that at one point, there was a good movie here. It feels that maybe the director had a vision full of themes, intentionally unlikeable characters to fit those themes(which would complete the Kubrick wannabe cycle) and scope, but then the studio raped it, wanting to make it a one-dimensional bloodbath. They should’ve gone all the way and just made it studio fodder, because the directors vision clashed with it too much(hence, the anti-violence message in a gory film). In the end, I doubt if anyone was happy with the finished project, as it ended up being neither dumb fun or introspectively thoughtful. But at least the ending was pretty ballsy. Violence: Rated R. Pretty hardcore. Nudity: Some sex, but I don’t remember any explicit nudity. Overall: “Repo Men” has horrible people in horrible circumstances in a horrible plot in a horrible movie. Just watch “Daybreakers”, which is the same thing except better. At the absolute best, if you want to see it that bad, just wait till DVD. 1.5/4 Stars 
