SYNOPSIS:
In the near future, people can enhance their bodies,
replacing any damaged organ with artificial replacements.
There's one catch: it's expensive and if you can't keep up
with the payments your body parts will be repossessed by the
"Repo Men" ... with painful and bloody results!
Jude Law plays Remy, one of the best Repo Men. When he falls
behind on the payments for his new heart, his old partner
Jake is sent to hunt him down and rip his new heart out.
Now that the hunter is the hunted, Remy joins Beth on the
run across a landscape populated by friends and foes becoming
a champion for thousands like him, on the run from the Repo
Men.
MOVIE REVIEW:
The dystopian satire “Repo Men” makes an excellent case for healthy living and universal health care. Based on the novel “The Repossession Mambo” by Eric Garcia (who adapted his own work along with Garrett Lerner), it imagines a future where you and I can get synthetic prostheses- known as antiforgs- at obscenely expensive prices fixed by a giant corporation known as The Union. The catch is, if you fail to make payment, the Union sends their Repo Men to cut you up and repossess their property (but not before asking if you want them to call an ambulance).
It’s really not too far-fetched if you think about it. Already, people are starting to get certain diseases at a younger age, which increases their risk of organ failure. Healthcare today is also driven by private corporations that are in turn driven by the pursuit of the bottom line. Put two and two together, and you’ll see the ingenuity behind “Repo Men’s” premise- though sadly, that same originality doesn’t quite translate to its execution.
Garcia wraps his smart precise around a not-so-smart story about one particular Repo Men, Remy (Jude Law), who is suddenly thrust into the predicament of his victims when a last job goes awry and he is saddled with an artificial heart. His boss, Frank (Liev Schreiber continuing to perfect his brand of cold-hearted, cocky cynicism), is unsympathetic, callous even to send his best friend and former partner Jake (Forest Whitaker) after him to collect.
On the run Jake goes, with a nightclub singer Beth (Alice Braga) for company, until he decides that he has had enough of hiding. Jake promptly changes tack to become a futuristic Rambo, penetrating the bowels of the enemy and using two knives to dispose of plenty of armed Union men along a narrow corridor in unusually gory fashion. That scene is a perfect example of the tone that the film struggles to maintain throughout. Does it want to be taken seriously? Or does it want to be satire?
The issues it flirts with suggest the former, since it’s likely that many people out there are already encountering the same matters. But the OTT manner by which the film unfolds hints at the latter, especially when Remy descends into typical action-hero mode. First-time director Miguel Sapochnik lacks the finesse to find the right balance- think Alfronso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” as a superior example- and “Repo Men” flounders too often to convince as either.
Nonetheless, the stars have approached their roles with the utmost sincerity. Jude Law appears all buffed-up (which probably explains why he has time in that corridor to strip off his shirt, revealing his bare chest and kinky leather pants) for his first straight-out action-movie leading-man role, summoning enough gusto to deliver his lines with conviction. Forest Whitaker is less convincing as his possibly sociopathic partner Jake, the actor continuing his downward slide after a career-high winning Best Actor.
Not that Garcia and Lerner’s screenplay gives Law or Whitaker much to work with- Law’s character Remy’s transformation from ‘it’s-just-a-job’ Repo Man to Man-With-Conscience seems too awfully convenient; and Whitaker’s Jake remains the same one-note caricatured character throughout the film.
In spite of its shortcomings, that “Repo Men” manages to be consistently engaging is a testament to its unique and prescient premise. Had Sapochnik been a more experienced director (his dystopian vision seems all-too “Blade Runner” familiar), this could have turned out as genre-defining as Cuaron’s “Children of Men”; instead, you probably will not remember much about the film itself, but you’ll likely be thinking of the lifestyle you’re leading and that healthcare insurance you haven’t bought.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
This Code 3 DVD comes with a “Feature Commentary with director Miguel Sapochnik and writers Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner”. The trio talk a lot about how the film has evolved during production, though it does make for quite an interesting listen to the effect of studios and ratings on the final product.
Rounding out the extras are a collection of “Union Commercials” which we only see glimpses of during the movie, as well as a short featurette “Inside the Visual Effects” which describes how Sapochnik filmed the green-screen sequences. There is also 8 mins worth of “Deleted Scenes”, building mainly on Remy’s relationship with his son.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The movie is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and the audio presentation gives a good surround effect with a suitably rousing bass throughout. Visuals are clear, providing sharp details, nice contrast during the night scenes and strong colours.
MOVIE RATING :
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Gabriel Chong
Posted
on 15 December 2010 |
