Jude Law and Order - Repo Men - Movie Review

Repo Men = C+
Written by Eric Garcia & Garrett Lerner, Directed by Miguel Sapochnik
Opens Mar. 19th 2010

I blame last years Taken. It was a terrible movie. But it was a terribly cathartic movie about revenge and it was wonderfully cast and in the end, I guiltily enjoyed it against my best moral judgment. Did Hollywood take notice? Cause this year, I've quite enjoyed Daybreakers, Remember Me and now Repo Men. Terrible terrible movies that I quite enjoyed against every critical thought in my head.

All those movies above started with a great concept, quite clever ones actually, some intriguing twists, and a pretty good set of actors. And then most of them were given to new directors and given the MTV video treatment, without any further refinement of the scripts, so they're left in a rough state of early development.

This time in Repo Men, an interesting premise goes off the rails as the writers try to keep twisting away with the suspense, while the director relies on beefing up the action sequences just in case the darker metaphors start to bore us.

Jude Law and Forest Whitaker are repo men for The Union, a company that sells body parts in a futuristic Toronto (well, they don't actually say what future city they're in but they don't really attempt to hide Toronto and figure most of America will have no idea what my city looks like anyways (if it doesn't have the CN Tower in the shot). The repo men seem to take the law in their own hands (literally slicing away unpaid body parts) for the sake of their job. That is until Jude Law ends up being a client (due to an injury caused at work) and begins missing payments (if anything, this is a cautionary tale to be pro-Worker's Comp). Then Jude Law grows a conscience and the revenge on the big evil corporation begins. It's all very cathartic if it weren't so damn bloody, and as the film goes on, and twists are piled upon twists until utter ridiculousness ensues and had me out. A final twist excuses the ridiculousness and the over-the-top action sequences and all the blood... sort of, or, like the twist in Remember Me,

At least it's all an excuse for Jude Law (recently amazing audiences with his thespian skills as a terrific Hamlet on the stage) to show us his buff self and be all badass (though Community's Yvette Nicole Brown gets a nice tiny role where she outbadasses Jude Law)! But while Jude seems to enjoy doing the futuristic sci-fi movies (A.I.), this is no Gattaca.

It's almost a shame to see good actors like Forest Whitaker and Liev Schreiber (currently acting up a storm in A View From the Bridge on Broadway) reading lines like the ones they are given here, but at least their clout adds to the weight of the premise, since the director never seems to fully trust it himself.

Vance at http://tapeworthy.blogspot.com