Repo Men Review [2]

Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz on 03.22.2010

An entertaining mess.

Jude Law- Remy
Forest Whitaker- Jake
Liev Schreiber- Frank
Alice Braga- Beth
Carice van Houten- Carol
Chandler Canterbury- Peter
RZA- T-Bone

Directed by Miguel Sapochnik

Screenplay by Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner, based on the novel Repossession Mambo by Eric Garcia

Distributed by Universal Pictures

Rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, language and some sexuality/nudity

Runtime- 111 minutes

Website: http://www.repomenarecoming.com/



"Repo Men," directed by Miguel Sapochnik, is a mess. It's an entertaining mess, but a mess nonetheless. It's a sci-fi action flick chock full of seemingly half thought out ideas and brimming with social commentary that isn't as profound or penetrating as the movie seems to think it is. The incredibly well done and exciting action bits kind of make up for the incomplete world that the characters exist in, but it's frustrating to think that, with a little more thought ahead of time, "Repo Men" could have been a modern classic instead of a unfulfilling but still pretty okay genre movie.



"Repo Men" stars Jude Law as "Remy," an employee for the Union, a company in the future that sells replacement organs to people in desperate need of a transplant. The problem for most people in need is that the replacement organs are so expensive that the only way they can afford them is on a payment plan. If a transplant recipient fails to make a payment for three months, Remy (or a guy like Remy) will show up to retrieve the organ. As you'd expect, removing the organ usually kills the person, but then that's not really Remy's concern. Remy, and guys like Remy, are just doing a job ("a job's a job," as Remy says to his partner Jake, as played by Forest Whitaker) and the particulars are someone else's department to deal with. The pay is good, they're providing for their families, they get a rush out of the hunt and the pursuit, and, hey, what's wrong with any of that?



Well, Remy's wife Carol (Carice van Houten) wants him to give up the hustle and bustle and danger of the repo game (as you'd expect, lots of people put up a fight when the repo men come calling) and go into sales. The pay isn't as good in sales, but the job and the hours are more stable, which is better for a family (Remy will also be able to spend more time with his on Peter, as played by Chandler Canterbury). Remy is sort of hip to the idea of going into sales, but he's not sure it's a good idea (he wants to spend more time with his family, but there's the money to consider, and he's not that sure he can even be a salesman). Jake, though, isn't happy with the idea of his best buddy in the whole world (they've apparently known one another since the fourth grade) getting out of the repo game to go do a job that's a soul sucking bore. Remy eventually decides to do the "right" thing for his family and quit the repo business and go into sales, but before he hangs up the taser pistol, plastic raincoat, and scalpel, he goes on one last repo job, a job that ends up changing his life in ways that he could have never imagined.

The job, removing the heart of a well known recording artist (T-Bone, as played by RZA), goes haywire, causing Remy to be so severely injured he has to go to the hospital. Remy wakes up several days later (or it could be weeks. I'm not quite sure on that detail) to find Jake and his Union boss Frank (Liev Schreiber) looking over him and telling him what's happened since the botched job. Carol has left him, and he needed a heart transplant. Of course, the heart transplant wasn't free (Remy will have to pay for the new heart, on a payment plan, like everyone else, even kids. Engaging in Kim Richards is not a big deal). So, now, with no family and a staggering medical bill that he has no real hope of paying, Remy starts to think about what it is he's been doing with his life since he joined up with the Union and what he's allowed to happen. Suffice it to say, Remy isn't happy.



Remy can't do the salesman job (just as he thought he's terrible at it). And Remy can no longer be a repo man. His conscience won't allow it. So Remy disappears into the artiforg underground, where people with past due bills try to hide from the Repo Men and survive. It's here that he meets up with Beth (Alice Braga), a lounge singer that's basically a bionic woman (she has ten replacement organs in her body, all of which are severely past due). Remy decides to protect her and find a way to keep her alive and away from the Repo Men hunting for her. Meanwhile, Jake has been recruited by Frank to track Remy down and retrieve his heart. A job's a job, and a contract is a contract, after all. So, will Remy and Beth survive? Will Jake find his best friend and "do his job?"



One of the first things you're likely to notice about "Repo Men" is how the movie never explains how the future world the movie exists in came into being. There's a radio transmission/TV voice over at the beginning that sort of explains stuff but it's really unclear what the transmission is referring to? What happened in the past to cause the future to become such a hard, unforgiving place? Why would the government allow a private company like the Union to be in the business of basically killing people, and why would a populace allow such a thing to happen in the first place? Is this future some sort of ultra right wing pro business utopia where a business contract is the most important thing in the world, even if the contract allows rampant killing by the company that distributes the contracts? Why isn't anyone putting up a fuss about the impossible contracts that the Union gets people to sign onto? And what happens to the bodies once the Repo Men are done retrieving the Union's property? Who cleans that stuff up? You'd think that a movie that has flashbacks to the childhoods of the main characters Remy and Jake, not to mention flashbacks to their Army service, would take three minutes to explain how the future came to be. But for whatever reason Sapochnik just dumps us into the future without explanation and we're supposed to just accept it. It's not a good strategy. Why not have Remy, who narrates most of the story, explain the future's history at the beginning while he's typing out that manuscript? Or why not have "Starship Troopers" like media segments explaining what's going on and why the future is the future?

I'm going to say that, above all else, the biggest problem with the movie is with its point of view. The movie probably should have stayed away from the one man's struggle narrated by that one man and instead gone for a more omniscient/general third person point of view so the social commentary could have more bite. But then the movie couldn't have the big swerve ending that it has, an ending that's just a big cheat (it isn't cure or ironic or smirk inducing. It comes off as sad nonsense). The ending makes sense in its own way (there's a point towards the end of the middle of the movie that's a dead giveaway if you're paying attention) but it still comes off as a big letdown. You're likely to ask yourself the same question I did when the end credits started to roll, "Well, yeah, but so what? Is that it?" Where's the follow through? Where's the payoff? It just isn't there. Even in a character sense it's a big letdown. Why Remy gets a heart transplant is a bit of a stretch, and, again, there's no real payoff to it. You won't like it.

The action scenes, though, are pretty cool. There are several great chase sequences at the beginning and towards the end, not to mention some fun fight bits (there's a great fight in an abandoned factory towards the beginning of the movie, and there's a great knife fighting sequence at the end of the movie). The flick also has some nifty gore bits, too (the impromptu surgery sequences are quite graphic, and the scene at the end of the movie in a vault between Jude Law and Alice Braga will be this movie's calling card for decades to come for its graphic beauty and unsettling imagery. If only the movie were as skilled in the story and plot departments).



The performances are generally good throughout. Jude Law is great as Remy, especially at the beginning when he's going through the motions of being an organ repossession specialist. His character isn't as interesting towards the end of the movie in terms of motivation (you kind of buy Remy's change of heart but not that much) but Law's natural charisma makes up for it. Forest Whitaker is scary as hell as Jake. He's so completely devoted to his job as a Repo Man (he gives a great speech about the rules of society towards the beginning of the movie) but he's also devoted to his best friend Remy. Whitaker is also awesome in his several fight scenes (he has one of the best bad ass walks in recent history). And Liev Schreiber is hilarious as Frank. He's such an evil prick that you can't want to see him goddamn die. Frank is so devoted to his company and his job and the philosophy of "don't buy something you can't pay for" he makes your skin crawl.

And then there's Alice Braga as Beth. Braga is okay here but she really can't work side-by-side with Law. She's just not as good as he is and Beth suffers for it. And Carice van Houten is basically non-existent as Remy's wife Carol. Carol has one interesting moment where she's outraged that Remy helps Jake remove a guy's kidney outside of their house, but the scene really doesn't go anywhere after that. Is Carol upset that her husband is more devoted to his job than his family here, or is she outraged that he would essentially bring his work home with him and do his nasty business in front of their son? It's all kind of wishy washy here.

And that's what you're going to be most upset about when the movie is over. "Repo Men," for all of its style and attempts at social commentary, just doesn't go far enough. It needs a tighter focus, a bigger reason for being. The movie needs more meaning. It's not a total wash, but it sure could have been better. It's frustrating. The movie wants to say something, it really does. It just can't say it.

"Repo Men" is worth seeing, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it in a theatre. You're probably better off waiting for the DVD release.

So what do we have here? Gratuitous Jude Law, gratuitous Schrodinger's Cat, gratuitous Jude Law using a typewriter, attempted oral sex, gratuitous taser attack, gratuitous portable organ removal case that includes a see through plastic raincoat, gratuitous organ removal, exercising, a bathroom attack, an elevator attack, a hard sell organ transplant bit, gratuitous Forest Whitaker, gratuitous Liev Schreiber, gratuitous childhood flashback, a massive bilingual city, gratuitous scanner gun that can shoot through a person's body and read a barcode, gratuitous Repo Man company picnic, a massive fight scene in an abandoned building, knife fighting, stabbing, cybernetic arm hooey, head smashing, a great speech about how rules help make society society, gratuitous RZA, gratuitous military flashback, arm breaking, a hot strip club, a new heart, a snot bubble story, gratuitous "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life" organ removal scene in the background, gambling, gratuitous Kim Richards, rock to the head, barcode hooey, sex, typewriter to the head, kidnapping, gratuitous airport chicanery, multiple stabbings, award plaque to the head, a hilarious black market doctor, gratuitous kneecap removal (you probably won't want to eat raviolis afterwards), a hellacious beating, taser through the mouth, several human shields, gratuitous awesome slow motion knife fighting, throat slashing, hacksaw attack, plastic bag hooey, hammer hooey, a gruesome scene in a closed room that will be talked about for a good long time, knife through the throat, a massive explosion, and an ending that's nothing but a big ass cheat.

Best lines: "What do I remember?," "I'm sorry, that's not my department," "No need for violence, miss," "Hey, watch the suit," "He'll sign it. Everybody signs it," "I'm working with fucking children," "Hey, how's that pancreas holding up?," "A job's a job," "Come on, love, it's just a kidney. He's got another one," "We got a nest," "That's a motherfucking hit right there," "There's a complaints department," "I have been knocked unconscious on four separate occasions," "Uh, sir, that's hospital property!," "Clearly, I'm not cut out for sales," "You've done this a thousand times! What the fuck is wrong with you?," "For those still counting this is knock out number four," "Take me out of the system! Give me your fucking heart!" "Ask me about my lips," "If you ever want to move to repo you've got to keep your fucking head up," "The airport? No one gets out of the airport. It's impossible," "Are these tickets refundable?," "Everybody's got to be a fucking hero!," "Welcome to your world Repo Man," "Peter, that's very naughty," "Oh, shit, Union men," "Great! That's just fucking great!," "Christ, it's hot," and "Repossession Mambo? It sounds kind of fruity."

The 411: "Repo Men" is generally okay for what it is, but it clearly aspires to be more. It just isn't very successful in that regard. It's full of ideas and social commentary, but it's all sort of half baked. It's not as fulfilling as it should be. The action scenes are pretty cool, and it's got some fine performances, so there is that to look forward to. But, again, you just wish it delivered on its initial promise.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]