Cinema Review: Repo Men

Written by Paul Cryer Wednesday, 21 April 2010 10:59

Director: Miguel Sapochnik
Written By: Eric Garcia & Garrett Lerner
Starring: Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga, Liev Schreiber
Rated: 18
Running Time: 111 Minutes
Released: 16th April 2010

Synopsis: In the future humans have extended and improved our lives through highly sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs created by a company called "The Union". The dark side of these medical breakthroughs is that if you don't pay your bill, "The Union" sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property... with no concern for your comfort or survival. Former soldier Remy is one of the best organ repo men in the business. But when he suffers a cardiac failure on the job, he awakens to find himself fitted with the company's top-of-the-line heart-replacement... as well as a hefty debt. But a side effect of the procedure is that his heart's no longer in the job. When he can't make the payments, The Union sends its toughest enforcer, Remy's former partner Jake, to track him down.

Review: Repo Men is a cracking piece of sci-fi, b movie, gore filled, 18 rated film making. I really didn't know much about the film going into seeing it, but had heard a few decent things and knew it starred Jude Law. Set in a near future where a company called "The Union" has developed artificial implants which they flog through sales pitches too the needy at extortionate amounts. Fail to make 3 months of payments though and they send in a repo to collection, collect meaning just knocking you out, cutting out the organ and leaving you for dead. Now, forgetting all the quite frank stupidity in the premise and plot, why did I enjoy the film?

The film starts off rather blackly, with our Repos Remy (Law) & Jake (Whittaker) gleefully tracking down our non payers, carving them open and taking the organs, leaving them to die on the floor. There is a rather good action scene on a boat and you can tell that Law and Whittaker have a good chemistry and are enjoying themselves in making this film. After an accident though, Remy gets a replacement heart and suddenly 'sees the light' about what he was doing and that the people he was repo'ing are humans with lives and families. Throw in a split from his family and a new love interest and we have a pretty standard fare film. I've read many reviews which say the film takes itself too serious. I found that maybe at times it does, but overall it knows more or less what it is, an 18 rated silly action/scifier. Plaudits have to go to the final major action set piece which was quite impressive, rather Matrix style, but impressive non the less.

So, what didn't work in Repo Men. Mainly a middle segment that gets a bit bogged down in having to have a romantic subplot and people just running to escape Repos. The film did drag around the middle and could have had 20 or so minutes chopped off. I'm still never convinced by Jude Law as a leading man either, while he certainly seems to be able to carry off supporting roles, such as Dr Watson, I've just never been happy with him carrying films, he doesn't seem to quite have the charisma or charm to do it. There is also a rather odd proverb part at the start of the film that Laws character says about a cat in a box that just to me didn't really make sense for the film and was maybe trying to just make the film seem more brainy. There is also a twist ending which does make you say why, it does fit in with the film, but takes away from a lot of the second half of the film itself once it is revealed.

Overall then, this film will get slagged off by plenty and is certainly a marmite film. It is daft, it is silly and it rips off so many other films of similar genre, but it was good fun with some good action set pieces & good chemistry between the leads.

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