New on Blu (but don't bother): Repo Men

| by Allan Stackhouse |

What is so hard about making a futuristic movie? Why I ever thought this was worth renting is absolutely mind boggling. If there ever were a film to deserve to flop this year it would be Repo Men. Jude Law stars as Remy, an employee of The Union, a company who appears good in their distribution of artificial organs. These artificial organs are very expensive so everyone must buy them on credit. Everyone ends up defaulting on their payments and Remy and his associates from The Union must go in and repossess them, effectively killing those people.

I don't want to sound too repetitive so I'll keep this one short...

The film's premise is to entertain the notion of a ton of people needing organ transplants in the future. Why? Medicine is constantly improving and to not explain why all of a sudden everyone's organs are failing is foolish. And despite this surge in organ failure, society is still in tact to the point of developing new technologies. That is fundamentally flawed and I do not buy it for one second. In theory, asking viewers to accept one far out idea isn't anything new but the idea must not have something in it that defeats itself. The concept of organ repossession has no feet to stand on without a reason why.

After the inherently flawed concept, the rest of the film completely falls apart. The characters in this film are worthless. Remy, having murdered a ton of people, having a change of heart, no pun intended? Give me a f*cking break. Him finding redemption in Beth only perpetuates the ridiculousness of his character. Were Remy simply a long distance killer by sniper rifle or bombs, I could see him rethinking his career but he was the kind to cut people open and leave them dying where they lay. I honestly could not have cared less for any of them.

If you insist on still watching this film, I assure you that the twist at the end provides no redemption. The revelation at the end that Jake rigged the defibrillator was predictable and not at all interesting.

This film cost $32 million to make and where that money went, I have no clue. I suppose I must admire Miguel Sapochnik's leap from storyboard artist to feature length film but this film is terrible. It felt like such a pathetic attempt to be an assassin movie in the guise of a half baked futuristic concept. What's even more infuriating is that this film apparently copied Darren Lynn Bousman's Repo! The Genetic Opera. Darren is no darling of the silver screen (Saw II, III, IV) but no one deserves to have their ideas bastardized. For something this awful and mainstream to have ripped off a peer's work is shameful but to not even have done anything to be proud of is utterly revolting.

I can't, in good conscience, further waste your time analyzing the rest of the worthless elements of this film. Go watch something else.