Repo Men

One can’t really discuss the new science fiction film Repo Men without mentioning the ten or so other films it steals from whole-hog. It’s a no-brainer that the entire premise is lifted from 2008’s silly b-picture, Repo! The Genetic Opera, but because Repo Men takes on the story with a completely different tone, I’m willing to let that brazen theft go. What I can’t get past is how a speculative sci-fi movie like this insists that its audience to leave their own speculation at the door in order in order to buy into its paper-thin premise. Jude Law plays Remy, a Repo Man in the near future where folks can buy artificial organs of all sorts from a generic Mega Corporation of Evil. Remy and his partner/best friend Jake (Forest Whitaker) get their marching orders from bureaucrat Frank (Liev Schreiber), who sends them out to reclaim their company’s organs from folks who can’t make their payments. They do this by killing them, cutting them open, and putting the organs in ziplock bags to bring back to the company, which rescans them to sell to the next desperate customer. When a piece of company equipment malfunctions and injures Remy, he has to take a company organ himself or die. Since he's no longer earning a regular paycheck, it’s not long before his own ticker's account is past due. Soon, the hunter becomes the hunted, with even Remy's pal Jake joining the pursuit.