Repo Men (2010)

Set in the near future when artificial organs can be bought on credit, it revolves around a man who struggles to make the payments on a heart he has purchased. He must therefore go on the run before said ticker is repossessed.

Director:

Miguel Sapochnik

Writers:

Eric Garcia (screenplay), Garrett Lerner (screenplay),

Stars:

Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jude Law	...	Remy
Forest Whitaker	...	Jake
Alice Braga	...	Beth
Liev Schreiber	...	Frank
Carice van Houten	...	Carol
Chandler Canterbury	...	Peter
Joe Pingue	...	Ray
Liza Lapira	...	Alva
Tiffany Espensen	...	Little Alva
Yvette Nicole Brown	...	Rhodesia
RZA	...	T-Bone
Wayne Ward	...	John
Tanya Clarke	...	Hooker
Max Turnbull	...	Larry the Lung
Howard Hoover	...	Salesman

Storyline

In the future humans have extended and improved our lives through highly sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs created by a company called "The Union". The dark side of these medical breakthroughs is that if you don't pay your bill, "The Union" sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property... with no concern for your comfort or survival. Former soldier Remy is one of the best organ repo men in the business. But when he suffers a cardiac failure on the job, he awakens to find himself 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 his heart's no longer in the job. When he can't make the payments, The Union sends its toughest enforcer, Remy's former partner Jake, to track him down.

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Plot Keywords:

future | near future | artificial organ | on the run | singer | 

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Taglines:

Bad Heart? Bad Liver? Bad Credit? No Problem!!!

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for for strong bloody violence, grisly images, language and some sexuality/nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [es]

Country:

USA Canada

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

19 March 2010 (USA)

Also Known As:

Repossession Mambo

Filming Locations:

Bay subway station, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$32,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£182,798 (UK) (16 April 2010)

Gross:

£182,798 (UK) (16 April 2010)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Relativity Media, Stuber Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min 119 min (unrated)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Despite the fact that this was filmed with Hawk anamorphic lenses, "Filmed in Panavision" is listed in the end credits.

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Goofs

When Remy stops typing he takes the binoculars off the table and looks out the window. When the camera shows the pages he has written on the table the binoculars are near the pages on the table. But when they switch back to Remy he has them in his hand again.

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Quotes

Remy: Almost every job I do ends the exact same way. Some whimper. Some cry. Some even laugh. But in the end, they all do the same horizontal mambo, twitching and thrusting their way into the great beyond.

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Crazy Credits

An advertisement screen for The Union appears at the end of the closing credits.

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Connections

References Oldeuboi (2003)

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Soundtracks

"Burn My Shadow"
Written by Chris Goss, James Lavelle, Richard File, Ian Astbury
Performed by Unkle
Courtesy of Surrender All Ltd.

User Reviews

A butchered premise

Movies like Repo Men are those that take interesting, even fascinating, premises and butcher them to the point of disfigurement; a bland cookie- cutter version of how the plot could have unravelled. In addition to the obvious plot arc that can easily be surmised from the trailers, any good will built up over the running time is similarly bastardized by a horrendous final twist that is not only nonsensical but cheap. This reveal is not only blatantly alluded to early on but even for those who did not pick up on it will not be surprised by the finale. In yet another paint-by-numbers dystopian future where highly advanced artificial organs are now a reality, we follow two repo men by the names of Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) whose task it is to reclaim said organs from customers who have fallen behind on payments. They gleefully extract hearts, livers, kidneys, etc leaving their former customers on the wrong side of alive. Yet, after an on the job accident leaves Remy himself with an 'artiforg', as they are called, and subsequently is unable to make payments he goes on the run. With the help of a woman who is nearly all 'fake' so to speak (it is eye-rolling developments like this that make up Repo Men) he tries to bring down his former employer with Jake hot on his trail. Thank goodness at the center of it all we get three solid performances from Jude Law and Forest Whitaker as the titular repo men, and Liev Schreiber as their morally defunct boss. Without this trio to ground the movie in some realm of watchability this could have been an unmitigated disaster instead of just a near-disaster. The gore is ample in Repo Men but it appears in all the wrong places. Instead of using the violent repossessions as tentpole instances of shock, they pepper the story with such frequency, everything becomes white-washed (or should I say red- washed) and muted in effectiveness. I will admit, there are some well choreographed, badass action sequences but they can do little to lift the remaining material. Even with these kinetic bursts, the characters at the center are all so unlikable, whether they live or die becomes moot. Are we truly supposed to root for a murderer just because he had a moral epiphany and who in addition cheats on his wife after she condemns his job and then proceeds to abandon her and his son? All this is loosely strung together by a bland and sporadic voice-over which serves no discernible purpose. There are so many unanswered questions floating around Repo Men. What has happened to lead up to this future? What is government like to give this company absolute power to slaughter countless people? And where is the money in selling organs to those who cannot pay anyways? It is questions like these and more that leave Repo Men a vapid and unmemorable vision of the future with little to say about much of anything.