Cinema Alliance Movie Reviews

Repo Men is set in the future where corporations rule and the public, well, some are doing ok, some not so hot as there seems to be a large amount of people that need new organs, which is never really explained (it turns out to not really matter anyway). Jude Law is Remy, a collection agent of sorts working for The Union which sells artificial organs to people for large amounts of money (over $600K for a liver). Most people can’t afford the upfront fee so the Union happily sets their customers up with a payment plan. And just like a bank will come to recollect on a car loan that’s defaulted, so will the Union, which is where Jude Law comes in…

I am pretty sure which way the filmmakers who made Repo Men would have voted on the health care issue. The movie rips and shreds the idea that there is anything sacred about lifesaving care or medicine. It postulates a wholly unregulated future where the only people who will get acute care such as artificial organs are the ones who can show the money or the ones who are willing to borrow it. And as soon as people cannot make the payments the organs are repossessed “with extreme prejudice”.

To make his point, director Miguel Sapotchnik spatters the walls and the actors with blood and gore. In the first part of the story Jude Law and Forest Whitaker dispatch deadbeats with less sentiment than the Philadelphia Parking Authority shows when towing away a car. In a scarily prescient manner, the Repo Men just point their stun guns toward any individual, crowd, or building and usually find an offending debtor. I fear that soon, fellow citizens, concepts like “privacy” and “hiding” may be viewed as quaintly anachronistic. People are zapped, peeled, and left to die on the floor, with the inevitable begging and pleading treated as little more than incidental background music.

Even when Whittaker’s character, Jake, dispatches some unfortunate in a cab in front of Remy’s (Jude Law) house at a party the two feel little remorse. Remy’s wife leaves him as a result of this and other ramifications of his work. Remy goes on and on until he has an on the job accident with a defibrillator that causes him to need a company heart that he cannot afford… (the company is rather ironically called “The Union”).

Having been thrown out of his house by his wife, Remy moves in with Jake for convalescence. And soon the bills come due and the work orders begin to pile up, but Jake cannot motivate himself to do his old job. The denouement is predictable here as Remy runs for it and Jake chases him to an abandoned slum netherworld which I think was sound stages left over from Robocop movies among others. He runs and hides, but he is doomed, they are always doomed in these movies… This provides a great excuse for more uber-violent scenes where the director must have tossed hamburger, ketchup, and strawberry jello into a snow blower for effect. This is pretty good if you are a horror movie fan, but it is not a first date movie (unless you are a butcher dating an EMT or such like).

I think in the larger sense this is all about the dilemma we all face in this modern life. We want the goodies ( as individuals or a society), even the ones we cannot afford (like maximum live-forever health care), but we don’t always care about paying, exactly (draw your own eerie parallel with the housing crisis and banking failures of 2008/9). We are trapped between doing without the latest or the best and living la dolce vita maximus. We know we probably should do without, but a new pancreas would be so tasty, mmmm. They hold it out to us, always the shiny things, the shiny things. So this is a very timely topic, namely, where, if ever, is the reasonable limit to the money to be spent to save lives. In this story, the answer is delivered with brutal pragmatism.

As far as the future vision is concerned I wasn’t knocked out by the production design, but perhaps the lower key effect lets the story be told. Either the visual content is saying “this is the not too distant future” or more time and money could have been spent. I wasn’t too thrilled by the performances here, though I am a big fan of Forest “Ghostdog” Whitaker. I think the cast almost seem trapped somewhere inside the question:  “is this satire or is this drama?” Speaking of Robocop, a touch of the camp displayed in that movie might have provided some much needed comic relief and allowed the actors to broaden their performances. As a result, Jude Law’s narration is lifeless, for example, as compared to Fight Club or Zombieland.

Still, I will watch almost any ambitious science fiction movie, so please make more of them for me. I have a few suggestions of stories to option, if anyone cares. Like A. E. Van Vogt’s Slan, for instance. Or Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.

This film is worth your matinee money if you like violent action or speculative fiction.

Kevin Bolshaw

Set in London back before the London bridge was finished being built, we find ourselves in the midst of the world of Sherlock Holmes along with his faithful partner Watson already established as crime solvers aiding the London police. The film opens with Holmes and Watson at the end of their latest case and moving into a time between cases where their partnership is starting to dissolve in favor of Watson getting married and trying to live a normal life. Alas, they find their latest case is not quite solved and forces stronger than them pull them back together for another round.

The writing is a classic installation in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes stories, well told, clever dialog and an intriguing storyline that leaves you guessing at times with some pleasent twists and turns. Included are some of the classic Holmes characters along with some new additions that really don’t influence things a whole lot. Suffice it to say that overall it’s a good detective story that’s fun to watch.

Speaking of watching the film – the scenery is very well done as this is a period piece with some impressive CG filling in the landscape and providing an impressive backdrop set with the gritty feel of early London. The design of the clothing and gadgets of the time all blend in seemlessly while still keeping your interest with the technology of the day such as it was. Guy Ritchie and his team do a great job here. Then, there’s also Guy Ritchie’s rewind-and-move-forward style that lends itself nicely to the way Holmes likes to plot things out as he’s executing his master plan to bring the bad guy down and solve the mystery.

The acting is excellent with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law leading the way as Holmes and Watson, both of whom seem born to play these roles. Mark Strong puts in a strong performance as the bad guy as does Rachel McAdams in the role of Holmes on-again-off-again love interest. But the banter between Holmes and Watson is one of the more entertaining aspects of the film as the dialog is cleverly written as I mentioned and very well executed.

I saw this in the theater and while it’s not necessary to do so, the visual appeal of the film is a bit more evident on the big screen so you might want to catch this one out in the theater if you can. If not, definitely check it out when it’s released on PPV or DVD.

reviewed by Sean McKnight