Repo Men

Organ repossession is increasingly fertile ground for trans-humanist sci-fi writers. Repo! The Genetic Opera took a ludicrously campy stance with the concept, where Repo Men aims to balance action thriller with dark comedy. For the most part, it succeeds. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker star as Remy and Jake, respectively, the best repo men in the business, childhood friends and former soldiers, with violent streaks a mile wide. Not only are they good at their jobs, they love their jobs. The rub is Remy's wife; she abhors his gruesome lifestyle and nags him to trade fieldwork for sales. Of course, Remy's one last job goes sideways and he's stuck with an Artiforge artificial ticker and newfound sympathy for his marks. No longer able to slice up derelict clients with his "a job's a job" mantra and too disillusioned with the process to handle sales, he begins falling behind on his payments until he's forced to go on the run from his employers. There's a deft twist in the script that leads to a conclusion that validates the rising action of the final act, which is a brilliant sucker punch, playing to the expectations of Hollywood excess. M. Night Shamathon…er, Shyamalan should be taking notes if he ever hopes to get his mojo back. Highly kinetic knife wielding fight scenes make a great argument for "Jude Law: action star" and it's fun to see Whitaker playing a psychotic bastard, who, literally and figuratively, still has a heart. Supporting turns by Liev Screiber, Alice Braga and a cameo by the RZA flesh out the key players. Unrated and theatrical versions of the film are included, with an extra eight minutes worth of gore that didn't make it past the censors in an already hard-R film. Adapted from his novel The Repossession Mambo, Eric Garcia scripted Repo Men, along with television writer Garrett Lerner. Both scribes and director Miguel Sapochnik provide giggling, factoid-infused commentary on the film, deleted scenes and a visual effects feature. A series of fake commercials are included from a world that's clearly futuristic Toronto. In a display of foreboding realism, there are hundreds of new skyscrapers and videotron blimps, but the transit system remains unchanged. Now that's gruesome.