Ever had your car repossessed? Me neither, but I've seen it happen to a friend. It's not pretty. Usually some dude who looks like he should be snaking toilets will ride up, with a sneer, and proceed to tow your car away like you never laid eyes on it before in your life. Bitch and moan all you want. These dudes are like stone. I think some of them like the whining. Maybe they get paid extra for it?
In Repo Men, if you don't pay your bills it could be a much stickier situation. It's literally a case of life and death. Corporations have taken over everything. There's not a hint of government anywhere to speak of. A corporation known as The Union has gotten into the business of selling artificial organs. On credit, of course. These pricey bits of machinery are the only thing standing between most customers and death, so there choice is obvious. Who's gonna worry about making payments when your life is on the line? "Everybody signs", our hero Remy(Jude Law) always says. There is a catch, however. If you get behind on your payments, The Union sends out a couple of legbreaking repo men to...well, leg breaking would be preferable to what they do to you. They gotta get their property back, don't they?
Remy and his best friend, Jake(Forest Whittaker) are a pair of repo men. To extract Union organs from a customer they use no surgical skill I'd like to see in any hospital I'm checked in at. They tazer then hack into these delinquents with an eerie calm. It's just business, and business is boomin'. So what if he says he sent the payment in that very morning? There's a Complaint Department for that. Call them if you've figured out how to make your argument without any lungs.
To put it mildly, things aren't going so hot for Remy. His wife is a shambles; turns out hacking out people's organs makes the wifey a little squeamish. His boss(Liev Schreiber) is a slimy snake-oil salesman. Oh, and due to a freak accident Remy ends up just like the many people he's had to repo, with a fat motorized heart deep in his chest and debt hanging over his head. He and a club singer, Beth(Alice Braga) decide they've had enough of paying bills and set out to destroy the Union. How come nobody's thought of doing this to Capital One?
The biggest problem with Repo Men is the tone. Sometimes it's hard to tell if we're supposed to take it seriously. Based off the book, The Reposession Mambo(the film's original title) written by the film's screenwriter, the characters cha-cha-cha while at their bloody work. The film's entire score is set to the mambo, which makes all the blood and gore somehow worse.
Yet I'm inclined to believe that we're meant to have fun, not get all grim about it. Remy and Beth make an unusual couple: he is all human with a metal heart; she is pretty more machine than human except for her heart which is 100% real. The cheesy narrator can't help but make the obvious connection for us. Thanks. The action sequences, often involving wild martial arts battles with knives and hacksaws, are ridiculous. The love scenes are just as absurd. At one point, Beth and Remy make out while simultaneously shredding into eachother to scan their metallic parts. It's so stupid I couldn't help but laugh and finally give in to liking it. This film would be a total dud if it played everything straight.
The acting is nothing to write home about. Law and Whittaker are solid, but that's about it. I've always had a hard time buying Jude Law in anything involving action. Maybe it's the name Jude that ruins it for me. For once it can be said that I've seen a movie with Alice Braga that she didn't bug me. The niece of the great Sonia Braga was a dark cloud over some great films: City of God and Redbelt to name a couple.
If Gattaca (also starring Law) and Shoot 'em Up could mate, Repo Men would be it's crazy lovechild. This is pure sci-fi, delivered with a crooked sense of black humor that is more fun than a film this bloody has any right to be.
