Yay Movies: Repo Men

Ahhhh dystopian futures. Where would the movie industry (or the comic book industry for that matter) be without you? Some of the coolest movies out there have centered around the premise that the world of the future isn't quite all that it was advertised to be. It may look great on the surface, but just underneath lies the ugly truth.

Dystopian flicks usually feature a world that is quite similar to ours, but with one variation. In Blade Runner it was the fact that some humans were actually androids, but they could think and feel like us. In V for Vendetta, the fear and paranoia leads Britin to seal it's borders and become an insular empire. We all know the truth about The Matrix now, and hey, who cares what Soylant Green is as long as it tastes good? In Repo Men, the world is pretty much as it is now, except for the fact that modern medicine has advanced to the point where everything is replaceable. Got a bad kidney? Fuck waiting for some shmoe to die, just buy yourself a new one. Drink like an air traffic controller? New liver, coming up. These robotic medical miracles are produced by a company menacingly named The Union. Anybody out there can get whatever they need from The Union, as long as they have good enough credit. You see, these little robot organs run about $600,000 per. Of course, they can tailor make a payment plan, that fits your lifestyle. Just don't fall too far behind, because that's when the Repo Men show up.

Jude Law and Forrest Whitaker are the guys who have the unpopular job of being Repo Men. After falling behind on 3 months worth of payments, The Union is legally able to come and reclaim it's property. This usually involves Jude Law breaking into your house, knocking you out with a taser dart, and slicing the property back out of you. Jude and Forrest are the best at what they do. They've been friends since the 3rd grade, and now work together for The Union. Eventually Jude Law is sent to reclaim the heart of a reggae singer. This involves using shock paddles to stop the heart so the Repo Dude can snag it. The paddles backfire, and Jude Law wakes up in the hospital with a new Union ticker in his chest. What follows is fairly predictable, as Law falls behind on his payment after he decides he can't kill for his employers anymore. His boss, sneeringly played by Liev Schriber sics his best buddy on him.

The action in this flick is slightly above average, but the gore (people pulling out knees, sticking contraptions inside their bodies and scanning organs) is a higher caliber than anything in the latest Saw movie. Definitely not for the squeamish. Law and Whitaker do solid jobs playing their parts, but only Schriber seems to be having fun with it. Overall, the movie is enjoyable, but nothing special overall. The premise of a company owning your insides is intriguing, but it never goes any farther than being an excuse for Law and Whitaker to kick some ass and yank out body parts. The ending is a pretty solid swerve, but still doesn't elevate the movie to what it could have been.

I give it a 6.5 out of 10, and on the Butts "scale of good", it gets a "goood."

Side note: The Butts Scale of Good is a scale for judging movies based on how long you drag out the "o" in "good". A really excellent movie, like The Dark Knight would rate a "gooooooooood", while Handcock would rate a "good".