Genres

Visitors Review

Tdi7457 2012-05-24 16:54:33

When you look past the mediorce script and the over-whelming amount of action scenes, this isn't so bad

In the futuristic action-thriller Repo Men, humans have extended andimproved our lives through highly sophisticated and expensivemechanical organs created by a company called The Union. The dark sideof these medical breakthroughs is that if you don't pay your bill, TheUnion sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property...with no concern for your comfort or survival.Remy (Jude Law) is one of the best organ repo men in the business. Butwhen he suffers a cardiac failure on the job, he awakens to findhimself fitted with the company's top-of-the-line heart-replacement...as well as a hefty debt. But a side effect of the procedure is that hisheart's no longer in the job. When he can't make the payments, TheUnion sends its toughest enforcer, Remy's former partner Jake (ForestWhitaker), to track him down.Now that the hunter has become the hunted, Remy joins Beth (AliceBraga), another debtor who teaches him how to vanish from the system.And as he and Jake embark on a chase across a landscape populated bymaniacal friends and foes, one man will become a reluctant champion forthousands on the run. Repo Men 7/10

Wesley Morris 2012-05-24 09:22:40

This is the sort of science fiction that opts for scissors to the groin or a bullet to the head rather than a complete thought.

Simon Miraudo 2012-05-17 03:45:27

'You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a movie...' Well, hang on now. Those anti-piracy warnings shouldn't simply be reserved for the download-happy consumers at home.

2012-05-16 14:18:14

Surprising

Being a simpleton, I thought this movie was going to be about repo-ing cars. Imagine my shock and surprise when I saw that it was body parts. While not loving the movie I liked it, and it kept my attention throughout.

Tom Meek 2012-05-05 19:41:12

Repo Men should have offered some lacerating satire, but the derivative filmmaking and reality-show dialogue take the heart right out of it.

John Anderson 2012-05-05 07:14:48

One can forgive the movie's defects, and its indecision about being tragedy or comedy.

Bess 2012-05-02 11:16:56

An above-average, entertaining sci-fi action flick

I enjoyed this movie a lot when I watched it, mostly because it met myexpectations, and even exceeded them a little. (Recently I triedwatching Surrogates, which I thought would be awesome, but I found itliterally unwatchable - I only survived the first half of it.Therefore: expectations for technology- and action-centric, dystopianfuture society movies = lowered.) I figured Repo Men would be a neatsci-fi action flick, emphasis on the "action", with lots of gore and -more importantly - lots of Jude Law. Not a movie that I would thinkabout for a long time after watching it, but a movie that could take mymind off things for a little while. It was exactly that - with a littleextra.It wasn't super deep, it wasn't super thought-provoking, it's not thebest movie that's ever been made. You could write paragraphs about howthe plot isn't solid. Many people already have, so I won't bother.Suffice it to say, it's true - when you start to think too hard aboutthe plot, you realize logic is thrown out the window on multipleoccasions during this film. But then again, we're talking about a moviebuilt around the premise that a private company hires, well, assassinsto come into your house, cut you up, and repossess manufactured organsif you're overdue on your exorbitant payments. If you're going tosuspend some of your disbelief, why not suspend... well... a littlemore of it than you think you "should"?I'd say Repo Men is an above average film. There were some parts of itthat I really enjoyed. For instance, the opening scene when Remy cutsout some guy's liver while indifferently listening to music? Well,"nice" is the wrong word considering the gratuitous blood and gutsinvolved (this movie is definitely not for the squeamish), but it waswell done. Right from the get-go, it established one of the majorthemes of the movie - how desensitized can a person, a company, asociety, become? People complain that the Schrodinger's cat analogy wascompletely pointless because it opens the movie but doesn't highlight amajor theme (the issue of "does my artificial organ not make me a real,'live' person?" never crops up), but I think this particular argumentmisses the point. Remy is referring to himself being technically alive,but so distant from the reality of his work that he meekly sits backand allows the atrocities to continue.I loved the twist ending, because it did catch me by surprise and itcarried a powerful message, in my opinion. People complain that it madeno sense with the plot and that it was a total cop-out to have Remyactually be wired to a "neural net" after his first confrontation withJake. The plot logic complaint has some merit, but if you decide not tonitpick, what happened was this: instead of Remy escaping, basically byhimself, cut off from all resources and hunted down by the mostmalicious, high-tech corporation on earth, and managing to bring downsaid corporate empire basically single-handedly, he gets caught andactually accomplishes nothing in the grand scheme of things. Thatmoment at the end of the first fight with Jake, where we see him bashRemy's head in yet somehow Remy miraculously finds himself alive andbasically unharmed afterwards, was where things really started to getridiculous. When you find out that everything after it was all inRemy's head you understand why and it's brilliant. He only imagineshimself the hero. In his fantasy world, he imagines that he takes theUnion down to make up for his sins as a Repo man, so that he canforgive himself, but in reality he's only a small portion of somethingmuch bigger than himself that will keep going even after he's gone, nomatter how much he regrets his actions. In a world of Hollywood happyendings, with implausible heroes who, against all odds, save the worldfrom cataclysmic events and/or unspeakable evils, this was refreshing(call me a sucker for depressing endings).My rating lost three stars because - like many other reviewers - Irecognize the untapped potential behind Repo Men. This movie could havebeen fantastic. It could have made my top ten movie list. It just fellshort - as many movies do. Well, if all movies were perfect, how couldwe pick out and enjoy the spectacular ones? To sum things up: I recommend Repo Men, but don't get hung up on theplot details. Just... go with it, and you'll enjoy it.

agibaer 2012-05-01 17:26:52

So bad it is actually funny...

Summary: Jude Law and Forest Withaker star as Repo Men for anartificial organs producing and distributing company. Their work is abloody one.Review: I never really understood "So bad it is actually funny". Until I saw this movie. Especially the organ-scan-mambo at the end;that was really worth not turning off in the middle of the movie when Icursed myself for watching yet another crappy movie cause I'm to lazyto finish the latest Bolitho novel. Possibly the worst acting performances of both Law and Whitaker. Thedirector apparently really knows how to drown the last bit of actingtalent in anyone... Never mind the implications of being a guy who kills for a company withthe sanction of apparently most governments of the world. If you can'tpay for something, you give it back. End of story. It's always the samewith people, they pay for every crap but as soon as it concerns health,they want it all for free. Nevermind motivation for developing cures (money), reason fordeveloping cures (money) and what you need to develop cures (money).And a question that bothers me since A.I.: Why does Jude Law look soSlavic when he is supposedly a pure bred Brit?Well, the postman always rings twice.Highlight: The MamboNotable Actors: Jude Law (A.I.), Forest Whitaker (Ghost Dog), LievSchreiber (RKO 281)

ztratar 2012-04-26 19:33:13

The movie that tried too hard...

This movie had some ups and downs but eventually fell flat on it's facedue to poor directing and horrible writing.First off, there were different components of the directing thatweren't so bad. I felt as though I was IN the movie. The fantasticgraphics, costumes, and lighting of the movie made me feel as if I wasin the story. The writing, however, did the exact opposite. Some of thewriting could have been saved by good directing, however, that did notseem to pull this one through either.The Writing: Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a movie try so hardto be good. They tried everything! They tried over-the-top action,romance scenes, a "epic" ending, hell, even a cliché twist! What needsto happen in this type of movie, the "fall in love and save yourselfand the girl" type movie is character development. This movie providednone. The main character "Remy" played by Jude Law was decently acted,but none of what he did made sense. He loved his wife and kid, getskicked out of his house, and 4 days later hes having sex with a randomgirl he just met. Not only that but none of it was believable. A stupidcomment about her lips gets them both head-over-heels in love! Inaddition, he talks about he can no longer kill someone because it'swrong and then goes out and violently murders other people. All of thismakes you feel like the character is a wanna-be hero who is just a punkwho has a messed up moral compass. The little curve ball thrown byJake, played for Forest Whitaker is also extremely stupid and possiblethe worst part of any script ever. I want you to be my teammateforever, so now I'm going to almost kill you and ruin your life. WHAT.The action scenes were boring as hell and at times overly done. Themusic made them even funnier as it was trying to be intense when reallythe characters weren't doing anything exciting.Overall just a horrible horrible movie.

Eric Melin 2012-04-26 15:34:01

Surface value thrills that grow tiresome and a formulaic story that buries most of the movie's built-in absurdity. What could have been a gory satire becomes a sloppy exercise in berzerk commercialism.

James White 2012-04-26 04:25:16

It might not be the most original tale, but it's visceral, visual and vitriolic, with a line in sharp, dark humour.

Dan Franzen 2012-04-25 15:07:33

Miserable, obvious dreck

Although it looks like a sci-fi man-on-the-run thriller, Repo Men issubstandard action that takes itself far too seriously and, in fact,isn't really sure what it wants to be when it grows up. Jude Law starsas an employee of a company that sells artificial organs to lucky duckswho need them – at high interest rates – and then repossesses them whenthe payments aren't met.The ads for this movie made it look almost like a satirical look athealth care. Repo Men is set in the near future, when apparentlyeveryone needs organs of some kind. Law plays Remy, the top employee atThe Union (of course he is) who undergoes an epiphany when he blacksout and needs a new heart (of course he does), the payments for which(of course) he eventually can't make. Will The Union send someone –maybe his longtime partner Jake (Forest Whitaker) to repo the heart? Orwill Remy, who now sees how badly immoral he's been, somehow topple theevil predatory corporation? We'll pretend, for the sake of argument,that this is science fiction. After all, you don't see companies –private companies, mind you – attacking citizens and harvesting theirorgans, right? But that's about the only fictitious aspect of thismovie, because it's mired in clichés of movies and everyday lifeanyway. Sci-fi can be tough to write; it has to be smart enough tostand under the weight of its own science but be entertaining enough tosell the plot. Repo Men isn't smart or entertaining, except tobloodbath aficionados, I suppose.What is Remy's motivation, except to survive? Are we supposed to seehim as the plucky good guy going up against an evil company? Tough todo that when he slaughters scores and scores of people, even unarmed,even by hacksaw and sword. Remy doesn't seem so much as someone tryingto do the right thing as someone trying to settle a personal score.Naturally, this culminates with an extended fight scene in which Remy –and his new heroine, Beth (Alice Braga) – take on not only tough goonsfrom the corporation but also apparent office wonks, complete withneckties and pocket protectors and armed with almost nothing.The ending is especially ludicrous, involving a hare-brained scheme toget themselves out of The Union's system (which shows them asdelinquent), as if that's all it takes. Remy accomplishes this in fullview of the company's honcho (Liev Schrieber) and his own (ex) partner,Jake. "See, I'm not in the system! I rule!" Well, yeah, but they sawyou do it and they know you're overdue, so what the heck, Jake? It'snot Chinatown.Repo Men is riddled with plot twists that are either blindingly obviousor make little sense. Even propelling the plot isn't a task thesetwists are up to. To be sure, there's plenty of action, but it feelsalmost out of place. It's also very bloody, which you expect from amovie in which the main characters slice open living humans to grabtheir livers or whatever, but it's very bloody on top of that, withknives slammed into necks, limbs seemingly hacked off, and so on.The two twists near the end are almost Shyamalanesque, in that theyseem to be there merely because they're twists of some sort, notbecause they're plausible or, you know, not ridiculous.Repo Men might not be the worst of the first quarter of 2010, but ithas to be a front runner. A waste of a good cast, particularly Whitakerand Schrieber.

2012-04-24 23:09:01

Repo Men

"... is an extremely bloody sci-fi thriller. The flaws brought the movie down though. It could have been a great action film instead of just a gorefest."

Cole Smithey 2012-04-24 12:05:40

"Repo Men" is a joyless experiment in stupefaction. Like pornography, you know it when you see it, and you've seen all before.

Andrea Chase 2012-04-23 03:00:47

a bewilderingly awful concoction that seems to have been written by a committee whose individual members were forbidden to contact one another and who seem to be ignorant of the most rudimentary fundamentals of storytelling, screenwriting or coherence

SerpentMage 2012-04-22 11:41:43

Repo Men Gets a Bad Rep

I just watched this movie with my wife, and quite frankly I bought thismovie because of the two actors. This movie could have been aboutpaints that dries and I still would have bought it, but since it wasscience fiction I could not resit.I liked this movie because it allowed me to think of the ending and thedetails of the ending. When a movie ends with a typical ending I say,"nice movie, next". So I read the reviews and have to say they completely missed the point,and maybe they missed the point of SciFi, which is unfortunate. So letme address some of the points made:1) Too much gore to the point that it all becomes muted. Well guesswhat that was the point of the movie. Imagine being a repo man, howwould you be with respect to leaving people to die? You have to have acertain amount distance and muted feelings. Like Jude says when hetalks about the serial killer. The first is the hardest and takes thelongest. Thus the first gore is the hardest and the longest, but as thegore picks up you become muted.2) Believing the epiphany is not hard because the stage was setcorrectly. Namely up to this point he was always with his friend whohad no problems with his job. But if you shake the basic premise theneverything else must be questioned and since his wife left him (not theother way around) he had to question everything and he came to a newconclusion. Namely he understood that people were not numbers thatcould not pay.3) The plot and arc is not obvious. I watch lots and lots of movies andcan guess most movies. But this one was harder. Yes I knew that theneural net had to get their somewhere, but how was the question.4) Naive ending and too easily brushed over the details. Well guesswhat another brilliant move because while we don't know it, he isdreaming. And when we dream we see the world like we want to see it. Wewant to brush over the details. We want to avoid the truth.In the end I REALLY did like the movie and it kept me wondering...

2012-04-20 04:47:10

Great Twilight Zone Kinda Mood

This movie makes a great Twilight Zone or Outer Limit movie. Great Sci Fi down to earth story about the society. It would be even better if they could make the story even darker. The only problem is that I don't understand how Jude Law turns from the bad guy to be the good guy in the middle of the movie. Something must be edited out.The DVD comes with some mock up TV commercials that is fun to watch.Pretty good movie especially if you like Twilight Zone.

Rafacus 2012-04-19 21:02:38

Repo Men is Spicy!

The people are normal and there are mundane things in effect, cars arecars, they don't fly. There is a barbecue, an old typewriter and menwear suits and ties like they do now – in my time. Yet there arestacked advertisements digitally displaying things on the side ofhigh-rises, people getting artificial hearts, livers, kidneys etc. isthe norm. One can cybernetically enhance the ears for hearing, or theeyes for seeing or the knees for running. All you have to do is consultthe Union and it's new "Antiforg Payment Plan" – you get to prolongyour life, as long as you can keep paying your bill. Miss a payment andyou are given a window of up to 3 months to get even. Make it past 96days and you are flagged for repossession, at this point you had betterpray that Remy (Jude Law) or Jake (Forest Whitaker) are not sent afteryou.Repo Men is a dark sci-fi thriller about a gifted Repo Man who goesfrom being a top hunter to being hunted. It is a psychological mindfreak thrown into a neo-futuristic setting with decorations of blood,guts and gore to keep you uncomfortable throughout the entire ordeal.It paces well, and the acting talents of Jude Law and Forest Whitakerkeep you interested. It is disgusting, Repo Men reach into freshly cutwounds in order to extract mechanical livers, kidneys, hearts, and evenan esophagus. It is sexy, Beth (Alice Braga) is fire in the arms ofRemy, she's a tough beauty, she has a gorgeous smile and the chemistrybetween the two makes you root for them. It is unpredictable, just whenyou think you have it figured out as another cliché whatever, it flipsa switch and leaves you wondering at what point did things change fromfantasy to reality – or vice versa. Repo Men is a Sci Fi masterpiece.Plot Summary of Repo Men When childhood friends turned militarybrothers for life Remy and Jake take to repoing, it becomes a lifestylethat they have mastered. A job is just a job is the motto they parrotas they casually taze and slice open overdue organ holders to turn into the Union – headed by Frank (Live Schreiber) for payment via "pinkslips". Remy's wife has a hard time dealing with the dangers andimmorality of his job and threatens to leave if he doesn't take a jobin sales. This puts him in a place of indecision as he ponders ongiving up a career that he has grown to love alongside his friend. WhenRemy decides to take on one last job before changing positions to savehis marriage, he is injured badly and awakes to an artificial heartbeating inside his chest. Knowing that he is now under the same harshlaw that he had exacted on hundreds of other people, he tries to returnto repo and realizes that he has lost his nerve. In a fight againsttime, Remy is forced to make a decision on his life, can he ever cutsomeone open again, or can he manage to successfully run and hide fromthe Union.There is a moment in the film where Remy goes in to collect an expiredheart from T-Bone (RZA). T-Bone is a recording artist that Remy hasbeen a fan of for years. He is polite and welcomes Remy into his studioas he works on what he assumes will be his final track. Surrendering tothe inevitable, T-Bone asks Remy if he could finish the song and evenasks him to assist in the recording. The two sit and talk like oldfriends until the song is finished and placed on a thumb drive to whichT-Bone hands it to Remy. He then asks which position would be best forhim to be in when Remy takes his heart. It is a surreal take on theseparation of business from emotion with these men. For me it was oneof the better back and forths in the entire movie.I was pleasantly surprised by Repo Men, the twists and turns, theSci-Fi element and the love that comes about between Remy and Beth.It's a movie that will no doubt catch many of you off guard with it'splot and director Miguel Sapochnik knocked it out of the park. Were Ito change anything outside of the awesome soundtrack and everythingthat I have been propping in this review, it would be thecinematography. While I can appreciate the difficulty in conveying afuturistic landscape in a familiar urban setting, it was not asconvincing as I would have hoped it to be. Still this is crumbs, merepebbles of gripe for an outstanding movie. Repo Men is spicy, it ishot, and you need to check it out as soon as you can.

Megan 2012-04-18 04:32:04

Repo Men (2010)

Jude Law and Forest Witaker do a wonderful job as the main characters of this film. They are both wonderful actors and fit the parts very well. This film follows the careers of these two men who are repo men of the future working for a company (or Monopoly) called The Union. Instead of going out to repo citizens cars and belongings, The Union is a business that sells essential body organs. Instead of waiting on a list for someone to die, people may now just go in and purchase whatever body part they need. The repo men working for The Union are responsible for retrieving body parts back from those who cannot pay. It is extremely difficult to make the 5-600,000 dollar payment of many of these organs. The payments must be made however, or these men will show up in your home and take back what is theirs.

Karl Ericsson 2012-04-18 01:08:43

one of many bad consequences of so called privatisation

Not too much gore or violence, no, too much action and cheap thrills -that's the negative side. Otherwise, this is private enterprise inhealth care taken to one of its many absurd consequences. Now, thepoint with a society, any society, is that we help one another whenhelp is needed. Even a surgeon needs help when he gets sick and needsan operation - he cannot operate on himself if the operation meansbeing put to sleep. We may be against government and we should be verysuspicious about it - always. The best thing would be that all of usdid some time governing in our lives and that nobody was allowed to be'professional' about it. And societies should never be allowed to getto big. Small units and everybody in charge some of the time, that's apossible ticket.Meanwhile, we must understand that there is no nobler cause to spendour tax money than on health care for everyone as far as our medicalknowledge is capable to deliver it. We are not put on this earth inorder to enhance injustices created by fate. We are put here to givehelp where help is needed and compensate for the injustices of fate.Any other conception or tricky Darwinist schemes will quickly let usmove away from all decency.The business men have no place in the temple and must be kicked out ita humanity, worthy of our care, is to survive.Collectivism has become a dirty word and it is a dirty word if it meansunequal distribution of wealth. If however, it means absolute materialequality, which is justice, for all people who do as good as they canwith the abilities nature has bestowed them - then collectivism is thevery opposite of a dirty word and the dirty word is insteadindividualism as in egoism, which, in truth, is the proper word for it.With absolute material equality there can be no individualistic leaderand a bunch of collective cattle. The surgeon that is healthy operateson the surgeon that is sick, who becomes healthy and then can operateon the surgeon, once healthy who got sick. That is what truecollectivism is about - helping each other and no leader!