Repo Men

Certainly looks edgy right?

"For a price, any organ in your body can be replaced. But it can also be repossessed."

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Tagline, where it's all pulp sci-fi all the time apparently. Today I am going to be talking about Repo Men, a movie that is not Repo: The Genetic Opera. Are they similar? I don't know, I haven't seen that, because I didn't want to so sue me. This movie has Jude Law in it, so that instantly made it more interesting to me, also it looked pretty violent. I was not disappointed in THAT regard for sure. Repo Men is another science fiction story set in a dystopic future where artificial organ technology has advanced wildly, so that virtually any organ can be replaced. The caveat is that distribution of these organs is controlled by a company that charges astronomical prices for them, because its the shitty future, and people often are coerced into getting these organs because otherwise they'll die. Then again, the average person can't pay 750,000 dollars for a new heart, and so they end up going into delinquency and then it gets kicked over to collections. As you've probably deduced, that's where the repo comes in, If someone misses enough payments, the property gets repossessed. Out of their chest cavity. You might have guessed that having a guy stun you and literally carve your heart out often results in a distinct case of death. They have that whole Temple of doom thing going on, ripping the heart right from your chest, only with less lava I suppose.

Job satisfaction is important.

Back on topic though! The movie focuses on Remy (Law) who is an enforcer for "The Union" which is the evil mega-corporation that's literally going to take your organs from you, and together with his partner Jake (Forest Whitaker) he mercilessly and dispassionately goes about reclaiming organs, despite the rift it is creating between him and his wife (who understandably is sort of perturbed about him essentially being a legally endorsed serial killer. I would maybe have brought that up BEFORE having the kid and buying the house, but that's just me! To each their own I guess. Everything seems to be going better though, and Remy agrees to transfer to sales (which is so much better right) after one last job that naturally goes horribly awry. Remy is predictably put in a situation where he needs an expensive fake heart, and soon finds himself less than enthusiastic about murdering other debtors, when he is among their number. His buddy Jake and his boss Frank (predictably played by Liev Schreiber who has a face made to be a sleazy corporate ball-bag) are not thrilled about his newfound sense of empathy for the plight of his fellow man. Frank is especially unimpressed with the balance of his bank account.

Just look at this asshole.

The premise is not a new one, as organ-harvesting and the abuse of that particular business are prominent tropes in cyber-punk, a setting that extrapolates the implications of consumerist societies, to the point that you are literally not even in control or ownership of your own body. As a permanently employed person dependent on your income from a corporate job, that is sort of the case, but here they can literally just kill you if you don't have enough money, which probably you don't. It's a neat central idea that you can do a lot with, and one of my real complaints with this movie is that I felt like it could have done something more interesting with it. Instead it moves through the same "man railing against the heavens to change his fate" storyline, and fits a woman love interest clumsily in there too, why not. The ending was a bit unexpected and that was cool, but otherwise stuff was very predictable, even if it was action packed.

This sequence is pretty awesome I have to admit.

This movie is also intensely violent, and pretty seriously gory. There is a large segment of the action that is carried out with knives and improvised melee weapons, and as such there are a lot of pretty gross injuries happening. Remy might be trying to turn over a new leaf... but he seems intent on doing that by stabbing a whole bunch of guys to death, which seems counterproductive. I wouldn't tell him that though because I don't want him to fucking stab me. Critics were not impressed with this movie, as they took even GREATER offense than I did at the somewhat lackluster plot. I think I'm generally just a little more forgiving of the whole cyberfuture dystopia thing, as you've probably figured out for yourself. I think it's worth a watch if you have a space in your viewing schedule, just remember I warned you about all that stuff above.

That's it for today! Join me again next week, when I continue to while away the time waiting for a movie to come out that I ACTUALLY WANT TO SEE.