Set in the near future Ben Affleck stars as Michael Jennings a 'reverse engineer' who hacks into new electronic technologies for rival companies to duplicate. To protect his client's confidentiality Jennings agrees to have his memory erased, but after a highly paid top-secret assignment for the shady James Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), Jennings is awoken to discover that he has forfeited his paycheck. In return he receives an envelope of seemingly meaningless items, which may well later become integral to his survival. Jennings must discover what he has been working on in the past two years before his memory was erased, and why he's been accused of murder, but time is not on his side, and he must piece together the clues he left for himself before the Feds or his former employer catch up with him.
Paycheck starts promisingly as an intelligent story with intriguing fast-paced action, but unfortunately the chase becomes relentless and the action tedious, as the characters remain underdeveloped and the script underwritten. Based on the work of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, Paycheck doesn't live up to other cinematic adaptations of his works such as Blade Runner or Total Recall, and Dick's warped and paranoid futuristic world is unrealised in John Woo's under-designed future. This film is ultimately a disappointment which falls short of the intriguing story promised by its trailer, but nevertheless it is a better than Affleck's and Woo's respective disappointments with their previous projects Gigli and Windtalkers. On the other hand Uma Thurman has taken a backward step after her success with Kill Bill by playing such as diminutive role as Rachel the 'plant biologist,' even if that is an ass-kicking bitch of a plant biologist.
This film is at times completely unoriginal, borrowing and in some cases completely ripping off other recent films such as Memento, Minority Report and Die Another Day. Paycheck is ultimately rescued by its chase scene into which Woo crams cars, motorbikes, helicopters and a few well placed discarded pipes, topped off with a few explosions Woo shows us why he's still one of the best action directors and although this film isn't bad enough to demand your money back its not one to remember either.
3/5
