Not to be confused with Repo! The Genetic Opera, Repo Men is an entertaining story-focused film.

Note: Minor spoilers

Set in the near future, Repo Men explores a massive company that has perfected not only artificial organs, but procedures for quickly  putting them in (and taking them out of) people.  They are, as to be expected, extremely expensive.  But no worries!  You can get it on a credit plan!  What happens when you fall behind on your payments?  Your organ gets repossessed.

Don’t let the trailers fool you; Repo Men isn’t an action packed film.  Primarily focusing on the storyline, Repo Men is all about plot and character development.  Jude Law’s character is one of the top Repo Men who work for The Union.  After an on-the-job accident, he is given an artificial heart, since his own was wrecked.  Naturally, he falls behind on his payments, and the chase is on.  It kind of bothered me that he repossessed literally tens of millions of dollars worth of artificial organs for this company, yet they wouldn’t eat the cost of one organ to keep him alive.  I’m not sure if this is just a plot hole due to the book-to-film transition, but if it’s supposed to be a commentary on big companies, it certainly wasn’t subtle.  The runtime of the movie feels about right, however I don’t see much room for deleted scenes.  I think behind the scenes footage would be interesting though, most notably the design work that went into the artificial organs.

As previously stated, there aren’t all that many actions scenes…but what is here is positively brutal.  Knifeplay, tasers, and hand-to-hand combat abound.  Some of the bloodspray is CGI, but most of the gore effects are a combination of CGI and traditional effects.  There aren’t really any cringe-worthy shots in this movie; if you can handle watching a surgery on TV for more than 5 seconds, you can handle this movie with no problem.  The organ repossessions are fairly clinical in presentation, and account for some of the few static shots in the film.  The organs themselves are excellently designed, although they only vaugely resemble the organs they are supposed to be replacing.

The script is very well put together, and the cast has been well assembled.  Jude Law and Forest Whitaker make a great on-screen duo; their professional partnership and personal friendship felt very organic and fluid.  They either just had great natural chemistry, or hung out a lot prior to filming.  The always excellent Liev Schrieber did a great job as a boss concerned with the bottom line, although aside from the aformentioned “why won’t they eat the price on a heart for their top Repo Man”, I found his character to be generally likable.  The guy is a sleezeball of a salesmen, no doubt there…but his character still had a certain charisma about him that made me a bit upset that he was considered to be the “bad” guy.  Then again, if you’re a sleezeball AND a good salesmen, you would have to have a lot of charisma, yes?  Alice Braga, who’s short filmography list is full of great movies, continues her streak with Repo Men.  Her character felt a little off, but she still did a good job with what she was handed.  RZA, from Wu-Tang Clan, has a short cameo as a legendary musician who is behind on his payments (apparently with everything, not just his organs.)

Despite some minor plot inconsistencies (which, again, I chaulk up to the book-to-movie transition), Repo Men is a great story-driven film.  Unfortunately, this movie is being marketed completely wrong, and I think the expectation has been set for an action film, not a story film, causing the bad reception amongst critics.  So long as you don’t go in expecting non-stop action, you will enjoy it.    It is an absolute travesty that it has had such an abysmal time at the box office, so I encourage people to go see it in theaters.  Chances are, this one is going to find its audience when it hits DVD.