How much would you pay to keep living? Well The Union, a bio med company that produces artificial organs has just the thing to keep you ticking….for a price. So you get your artificial heart, lung, kidney, whatever, and since you don’t have a spare six hundred grand laying around they set you up with a payment plan to fit your needs. Great! Amazing! People could live forever! But what happens when that monthly payment becomes too much? Well that’s where Remy and his partner Jake come in. They’re the rep o men for The Union and they’ll be happy to take it back leaving you bloody and dying on the floor, still sound appealing? Jude Law plays Remy and Forest Whitaker his partner in organ retrieval Jake. Remy’s the best there is at what he does the only problem is that his wife doesn’t like what he does and is ready to leave him if he doesn’t stop doing repo and switch to the sales department. So Remy decides to switch and tells his partner and lifelong friend Jake that their partnership is done and he’s switching out. Jake gives his blessing and asks only that they do one last job together. Things don’t quite go as planned as Remy’s defibrillator goes bad and shocks him, blowing him clear across the room. He wakes up some time later to find that his heart was wounded by the shock and he needs a new one. This puts him in a peculiar position as he now has to become one of the debtors he’s been hunting and if his bill goes 90 days past due he’ll be on the list for repo. Now back in the repo game to pay for his new heart Remy finds it impossible to rip these organs from people as he now sees that they are fathers, sisters, brothers, and mothers, not just numbers on a case file. Due to his lack of ability to work Remy soon finds his 90 days at their end and payment is due. The hunter becomes the hunted and the race is on for Remy to find a way out with his former partner hot on his tail.
Whoa, what an interesting concept and more interesting question posed by this flick. With the advancements in medical technology it won’t be long until every part in your body is replaceable, so what happens when you can’t pay up? Thankfully this flick delivers and is more than just an interesting concept bringing Jude law back in to the leading man role. I was unsure about Law when I first saw the trailers; I really didn’t think I could buy him as an action star. While some sequences were a little bit harder to believe given his slight frame, he actually pulled it off quite well. As for Forest Whitaker, well, he’s always hit or miss for me and thankfully this time he’s on point. His odd delivery and general out thereness goes perfectly with his character. I also really dug the technology on display in the film, it really seemed like they took quite a bit of time making sure everything was plausible if not certain in our future. Not only that but they also came up with new tech to make sure the idea of slicing someone up in the middle of the street and successfully removing an organ without tearing the body to shreds was something you could do. At its heart this is an action movie and it certainly doesn’t forget that. There’s a fast paced, adrenaline jacked action scene every 10 minutes and boy does it get bloody. WHEW, I love how they handled the gore in this movie but man does it get disturbing. The camera does not cut away at times it probably should have so if you’re easily queasy you’re going to be spending a few segments with your head in your hands for sure. Since this is a flick about a guy and his buddy the chemistry is key, though they may look like the odd couple, Law and Whitaker are fully believable as two best friends which really helps the emotional pull of the film’s turning points.
Just like the downside to getting a new organ is the possibility that it may be taken back this movie does have its downsides. First of all there are some major plot holes in the movie, the biggest of which is why he has to pay for the heart in the first place. One would think that if you were injured on company time with company equipment that you would have one hell of a court case if that company didn’t do the right thing and fix what it had broke. There are a few other things that don’t really jive but I don’t want to risk giving anything away, just know that they’re there. Secondly there is a really odd, really disturbing sex scene that just felt like it didn’t have to be there. They could have accomplished their tasks without including a sexual element that was just weird as all hell. Lastly the wife was annoying, I mean really annoying. She was written to come off that way but I think it was a little far and it made the movie hard to watch during her scenes.
I love a fun action movie and that’s exactly what this is. Let’s not get it twisted this one’s not taking any little golden men home or even breaking any box office records but it’s a good flick. If you’re easily nauseous at the sight of blood or you have trouble watching whenever they’re showing those surgeries on TV this one might not be up your alley. However, if you like blood, guts, guns, knives and things that go boom I would recommend heading out to your theater ASAP. All in all, I would say go see ‘Repo Men’, you owe it to yourself.
