Repo Men

Opening Friday, March 19

Cast:



Jude Law as Remy



Forest Whitaker as Jake



Alice Braga as Beth



Liev Schreiber as Frank



Carice van Houten as Carol

Directed by Miguel Sapochnik

Review:

The generous splatter FX of Repo Men, in which artificial hearts, livers, and other man-made organs are removed with a butcher’s lack of finesse from their still-living hosts, may carry an ’80s vibe for genre fans but Repo Men put me mostly in mind of the ’90s. Maybe it’s because production design-wise Repo Men has that Blade Runner hand-me-down look so common to ’90s sci-fi films (Judge Dredd, Super Mario Bros., and Johnny Mnemonic, to name a few). Or maybe it’s because it seems to belong more to that time when original sci-fi films were more readily found in theaters, before the genre was dominated by remakes and superhero movies (maybe the success of District 9 and Avatar last year will turn that trend around). Or maybe it’s just because it seems like one of those likely-to-fail studio efforts that could’ve only snuck its way into production when there was a glut of competing sci-fi projects to be found but no particular trend to follow. Along those lines, Repo Men is not Transformers 2, or J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot. It’s more in step with Freejack, No Escape or Tank Girl. It’s a film that’s going to (mildly) endear itself to some genre fans, but to few others.

Developed as a screenplay by Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner in tandem with Garcia’s writing of his 2009 novel “Repossession Mambo,” Repo Men is a funky, dyspeptic look at a future where out-priced artificial organs are the latest business racket. People who need a new kidney don’t have to wait for a donor; they can instantly get a brand new organ thanks to The Union. The catch is when it comes to payment, The Union is ruthless about collecting. To fall behind too much means that The Union will send their repo men to your door, or to your workplace, or to anyplace you might think you can hide. And rather than bringing you to a hospital where your unpaid for organ can be extracted by a surgeon, The Union’s repo men do the extracting on the spot with their own tools. It’s about getting The Union’s property back; the survival of the host is not a consideration.

Two repo men who revel in their work are Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker), friends since childhood who seem to have found a perfect profession to work side by side in. It’s bloodthirsty work but these two have a natural talent for it. Trouble is on the horizon, though, as Remy’s wife Carol (Carice van Houten) wants him to quit the repo business and go into a line of work that sets a better example for their young son. Even worse is that an on-the-job accident leaves Remy with an artificial heart of his own – and the astronomical payments that goes along with it. If Remy were still able to carry his own weight as a first-class repo man, paying for that new heart might not be a problem but he finds he no longer can cut into the hapless possessors of The Union’s property as carefreely as he once did.

Jake is appalled by his friend’s sudden squeamishness but when Remy can’t pay up, he becomes just another target for repossession. Being one of the best in his profession, getting that heart back will not be easy – especially when it now belongs not to The Union but to a new woman in Remy’s life, Beth (Alice Braga). Beth is another poor soul whose body is filled with parts she can’t pay for so she and Remy are forced to go on the run.

Music video vet and first-time feature director Miguel Sapochnik handles Repo Men‘s action with fanboy-style zeal – one scene set in a hallway is an obvious homage to Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy – but the fact that he’s working from a script that’s almost totally befreft of sense means that Repo Men is handicapped from the start. The set-up for a biting satire is there and with the health care debate raging in the US right now, a film that depcits how hazardous to one’s health that health care is, and how longevity of life is a pricey privledge, couldn’t be more timely. But Repo Men is more interested in action and gore than skewering the system. Unlike director Paul Verhoven (Robocop, Starship Troopers), who has been able to meld savage satires of the corporate and political worlds with violent action, Repo Men is much more rudimentary. It’s plot hinges on the morally outrageous fact that The Union has jacked up the interest rates on their payment plan to a point where affordability is an illusion but yet Repo Men’s humor is limited to having some fun at the expense of the poor slobs who Remy and Jake are sent to move in on. Once Remy is on the other side of the organ equation and he belatedly understands how ripping out someone’s pancreas – even if they can’t afford to keep it – is wrong, the film becomes a standard chase movie.

Will Remy get to keep his heart? Will the heartless Union be undone? These are the questions that Repo Men concerns itself with in its second half. It’s strictly boilerplate stuff, somewhat redeemed by a concluding note that positions the rote path the film has taken into a different context. More damaging to Repo Men as a whole is that although Law gives a good performance, the film never adequately addresses the fact that, essentially, Remy and his fellow repo men are serial killers. We’re supposed to see Remy as a good dad and a person sensitive enough that they’d write a novel about their experiences but yet how is that supposed to add up with Remy’s lethal actions on the job? The movie never thinks to ask what kind of psycho would taser someone, then slice out their body parts, and then leave them to die – if they didn’t die instantly upon the organ’s removal. To gloss over that leaves Repo Men with a major credibility gap. Jake’s mantra is “a job is a job” but that doesn’t quite wash in this situation.

One also wonders why The Union just doesn’t install a kill switch option in their products so that when an owner is overdue on payment, that the product can be terminated from afar with the press of a button (a solution that would’ve carried its own moral quandaries as Union employees working in this capacity would know that every product they deactivate would most likely mean a life immediately ended) and then retrieved. But such a solution would’ve stopped Repo Men before it began – or else made it into a very different (but perhaps more carefully thought-out) movie.

Taken strictly as an action film with a helping of grisly gore, Repo Men is decent enough entertainment but most will find that it’s heart and brain are more trinkets than top of the line.