Paycheck (2003)

What seemed like a breezy idea for an engineer to net him millions of dollars, leaves him on the run for his life and piecing together why he's being chased.

Director:

John Woo

Writers:

Philip K. Dick (short story), Dean Georgaris (screenplay)

Stars:

Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart, Uma Thurman

3 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ben Affleck	...	Jennings
Aaron Eckhart	...	Rethrick
Uma Thurman	...	Rachel
Paul Giamatti	...	Shorty
Colm Feore	...	Wolfe
Joe Morton	...	Agent Dodge
Michael C. Hall	...	Agent Klein
Peter Friedman	...	Attorney General Brown
Kathryn Morris	...	Rita Dunne
Ivana Milicevic	...	Maya-Rachel
Christopher Kennedy	...	Stevens
Fulvio Cecere	...	Agent Fuman
John Cassini	...	Agent Mitchell
Callum Keith Rennie	...	Jude - Guard
Michelle Harrison	...	Jane

Storyline

Michael Jennings is a reverse engineer and what he does is technical jobs for certain companies and as soon as he is done, his memory of the work he has done is wiped out. Now the longest he has been contracted is 2 months. But now billionaire, James Rethrick offers him a job that would last 2 years, maybe 3, and he promises that he will probably earn 8 figures. Michael agrees. Before beginning he turns in all of his personal effects. And when the job is done, his memory is erased and he learns he made over 90 million dollars over the three years. When he goes to claim it and his personal effects, he discovers that prior to the erasure of his memory he waived his rights to the money he earned and that the items that were given to him were not the ones he gave when he began. Later he is arrested by the FBI who say that he committed some act of treason and murder. It's while he is in custody that he escapes using some the items that he was given. He later meets with a friend who gives ...

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Plot Keywords:

time | pipe wrench | babe scientist | seeing the future | evil corporation | 

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Taglines:

The future depends on a past he was paid to forget.

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense action violence and brief language

Details

Country:

USA Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 December 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

El pago

Filming Locations:

Burrard SkyTrain Station, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$60,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$13,462,374, 28 December 2003, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$53,790,451

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$96,269,812, 18 April 2012

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks, Davis Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

119 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby SDDS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jennings received five hundred twenty thousand dollars and nineteen cents, for developing the holo-monitor.

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Goofs

When Michael studies the items in the envelope and is looking through the glass prism, a spotlight is reflected.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Holographic Woman: It's time to wake up... and get a life. We live in a 3-dimensional world. Until now, the world of computing has been a flat world, consisting of 2-dimensional imagery. Now, through the use of exclusive breakthrough technology, ARC has made it possible for you to get a life. A-Life, where we can work and play in a lifelike world of 3-dimensional reality. A-Life, the living monitor.

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Connections

Referenced in NCIS: Tribes (2008)

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Soundtracks

Dream a Little Dream of Me
by Gus Kahn, Wilbur Schwandt & Fabian Andre
Performed by The Singleton Quartet
Courtesy of ITM Music, Ltd.

User Reviews

Better than expected action / sci fi flick

Philip K Dick wrote many stories which seemed to have great film potential. I never thought of this as one of them.

I have seen Ben Affleck in a number of films, and felt that he was good in a few, OK in most, and positively annoying in some.

I saw the horrible, misleading trailers.

The soundtrack was simply bad.

So, needless to say, I went into Paycheck with very low expectations.... and I was pleasantly surprised.

Affleck plays a talented reverse-engineer, who sees the possibilities in new technology, and is able to carry it through to fruition. He takes on top-secret jobs and has his memory erased upon the completion of each. He decides to take on a project big and profitable enough to allow him to retire comfortably for the rest of his life. He completes the project, goes through the memory erasure, and then starts to discover what he has done, and, pursued by corporate hit men and the police, tries to recover his memory. Uma Thurmond, a biologist he had fallen in love with, is one of the memories he wants to recover, and also a target.

Paycheck is more of an action film than a sci fi flick. The plot serves the action, as do the somewhat one-dimensional characters. And there is so little chemistry between Affleck and Thurmond that the romantic subplot is almost just a distraction. Despite these flaws, I spent an evening being thoroughly entertained by this rehashing of the usual technology-run-amok / knowledge-is-power story. This film is very Hollywood, and uses a lot of slick and clichéd camera-work, but nevertheless tells a good story and does it well enough.