Movie Review #5: Repo Men

I have to say that I'm excited to write this review because after four glowing reviews I finally get to write a negative review. As someone who aspires to create film I do want to be humble even in my criticism of a film I don't think worked because I know that it takes a lot to create something and put it on display for the world. That being said, I don't think Repo Men was a good film and I certainly wouldn't recommend going to see it. I didn't have incredibly high expectations for this film. The premise was interesting but I knew it had limits to the depths it could reach and I was reasonably certain that I knew the general direction of the film before I even went. The first half hour was pretty much what I expected and, up to that point, it hadn't lost me. The second act, however, descends into ridiculousness. With absolutely no preparation, a major character is randomly introduced and is never properly explained or developed.

In case you missed seeing the trailers, Repo Men is set in the not to distant future when technology has reached a point where artificial organs are available to the general public. They are expensive but, as the salesperson will tell you, they will find a payment plan that fits your lifestyle. If, for some reason, the payment plan is too much for your lifestyle and you fall more than three months behind on your payments, Jude Law and Forrest Whitaker will come cut you open and take back your liver or lung or eye or whatever the company requires you to return. For some reason, in the future, this kind of wanton butchery is perfectly acceptable and no one seems to notice the trail of dead people left by these repo men. In fact, despite having a legal obligation to offer medical assistance, the repo men seem to have absolutely no intention of ever doing their job in a way that might possibly not end in their death. The first twist in our macabre tale comes when Jude Law needs a new heart. He certainly makes enough to pay for it with his butchery but now, pun intended, he's had a change of heart and just can't continue. The three months fly by and, before you know it, he's on the run from his co-workers. All that is in the trailers and was done about as well as can be expected. From that point on, however, the film becomes muddled and begins to make even less sense than it already did.

This is the second movie lately about a future vision of technology run amok, the other being Surrogates and, for my money, neither really worked. Perhaps if the repo men had some sort of qualms about what they did and were not merely thugs I would have been more engaged and the story could have gone in a deeper direction. Instead the filmmakers had only one direction to go, ultra-violence. They pursue that path with abandon and the last major fight scene is about as violent as any I've ever seen. Some of that is explained away but, for me, it was too little, too late. My thought, as I watched Jude Law fight his way down the hall was, "I wonder what he was thinking about his career as he was filming this scene".