Movie Reviews this week looks at the futuristic sci-fi drama Repo Men. It stars Jude Law (Cold Mountain) as Remy and Forest Whitaker (mesmerising in The Last King of Scotland) as Jake. In the world we currently live in, you may borrow money from a bank or a loan provider, and if you can't keep up with the payments, the bank or loan provider can seize your property or your goods. In the world of Repo Men, instead of property being taken if you are unable to keep up with your payments, it is organs that have been loaned out, and the Repo Men are responsible for removing artificial organs from people who are unable to keep up with payments, and this they do literally. A company that has made it possible for those requiring liver transplants and various other organs that need replacing to get artificial ones, but they have to continue with very excessive payment terms, or else Remy and Jake will be sent to remove their property. We are first introduced into what Remy does from the start of the movie as he retrieves organs from an unfortunate individual, as he puts it "If you can't pay your mortgage the bank comes and takes it...If you can't pay for your car the bank comes and take it...If you can't pay for your organs I come and take it", and he shows us what he does complete with gore, and I must say this movie isn't for the faint hearted, it is full of gore and violence than most Hollywood mainstream alexandra daddario movies and.
It also stars the drop dead gorgeous Alice Braga (I Am Legend) as Beth, who has had a stream of artificial body parts right down to her eyes, whom Jake and Remy had been previously assigned to repossess. Repo Men obviously has a great deal of analogy with debt collection in the world today, you could literally substitute the organs with any other type of secured debt, and the results could frighteningly be the same. Matters take a sudden twist when Remy in the line of duty finds himself needing the artificial organs he routinely removes from others, and when the inevitable happens and he is unable to keep up the payments, it leaves some in the company they work for; with some hard choices to make, and as is customary with new insight when you are now the victim, it leads to Remy questioning the validity of such a practice, and the motives of the company as a whole.