Repo Men (2010)

Repo Men (formerly known as Repossession Mambo) is a 2010 American science fiction action thriller directed by Miguel Sapochnik, and starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

Cast

• Jude Law as Remy, a repo man
• Forest Whitaker as Remy's former partner, Jake
• Carice van Houten as Carol, Remy's wife
• Alice Braga as Beth, a singer who has multiple artificial organs
• Liev Schreiber as Frank, Remy's Boss
• Chandler Canterbury as Peter, Remy's son
• RZA as T-Bone, soul musician in debt

Plot

In 2025, a corporation called The Union has perfected the creation of artificial organs, which have replaced organ transplants. A potential customer can apply for an organ, which are sold on credit, usually with a large interest rate attached. If the customer is unable to maintain payments after three months, a repo-man is sent to the customer to reclaim their property. The process of the repossession is brutal, and often results in the death of the customer.

Remy is one of the Union's top repo-men, who partners with his childhood friend, Jake, in Toronto, to collect past due accounts. Remy is highly regarded within The Union as their top performer, though his occupation causes problems with his wife, who sees it as unsavory. After she leaves Remy when Jake commits a repossession in front of their home, Remy decides to transfer to a sales job, much to Jake's chagrin.

As his final repossession job, Remy is sent to the residence of a music producer, whose work he happens to admire. After allowing the man enough time to complete a song, Remy prepares to repossess his heart. When he attempts to use a heart defibrillator to stop the unit, the defibrillator malfunctions, sending a large electrical shock through his body and knocking him into a coma. When Remy awakens from his coma, he is informed by Jake and Frank, the Union's CEO, that the shock severely damaged his heart. He can be fitted with an artificial heart, or die. After Remy attempts to flee the hospital, he reluctantly agrees to the procedure.

Remy goes back to work, but is unable to perform his job, due to the fact that he is just like the people he is repossessing from. He attempts to transition into sales, but quickly finds himself behind in payments. Jake takes Remy to the outskirts of Toronto to a nest, which is a collection of people who have past due accounts with the Union, but are fleeing to avoid being repossessed. Remy is again unable to perform a repossession, after which he is abandoned by Jake until he can perform his job. Remy is attacked by a pair of men whom he attempted to repossess, and blacks out.

Remy, upon awakening, encounters Beth, whom he had met earlier in a bar where she was singing. He discovers that she has multiple organs that she is past due on, and is currently suffering from a drug addiction. Remy takes her to a motel room, where he stays with her as she goes through withdrawal. After a failed attempt to clear her account back at the Union's headquarters, Remy destroys all evidence of his life and Beth's before the two leave to live in the outskirts.

The pair live in relative harmony. Remy uses an old typewriter that Beth had given him to type up a narrative of his life, and subsequent conversion. As he finishes, a repo-man arrives to repossess his heart. After a brief struggle, Remy uses the typewriter to save himself and Beth. Using the repo-man's vehicle, Remy sneaks back into his former workplace to obtain a pair of devices that fool organ scanners used by repo-men. He attempts to force Frank to clear his account, only to discover that due to his prior attempt, all accounts can only be cleared back at the Union's central office.

Remy and Beth attempt to flee the country at the airport, but are taken by security when it is discovered that Beth's prostetic knee was damaged due to their earlier fight with the repo-man. Once inside, they are forced to fight against airport security and another pair of repo-men. Remy is able to kill or incapacitate all of them, and while escaping, comes face to face with Jake, who has now been assigned Remy's account. The pair head to a black market doctor, where Beth's knee is replaced. After the procedure, the two are stopped by Jake, who has tracked the pair. A bitter fight ensues, during which it is revealed that it was Jake that rigged the defibulator unit to fail, causing Remy's heart replacement -- he did this to ensure that Remy keeps his organ repossession job, so they could get promoted. The two fight, but Jake gains the upper hand, and knocks Remy unconscious by hitting him in the head with a large chain.

Remy awakens, and is hurried to a safe house by Beth, due to a raid by the Union's repo-men. The two survive the night, but Remy is overcome with remorse after finding the corpses of the victims of the Union. He resolves to destroy the corporation and clear the accounts of Beth and himself. After passing his story to his son during a brief meeting on a train, the pair travel to The Union's headquarters, hoping to remove themselves from the system. Remy and Beth are pursued throughout the building, and after an intense battle, arrive at the Pink Door, the main database for the Union. Using Beth's prostetic eye, they are able to seal themselves inside just as Jake and Frank arrive. Once inside, they discover that the server does not have any interface, except for a scanner. Remy realizes that the only way to remove himself from the system is to repo himself. Remy and Beth cut themselves open in order to use the scanner internally, clearing their accounts.

Jake and Frank are able to enter through the use of an organ, seeing Remy trying desperately to resuscitate Beth, who has stopped breathing during the process. Jake asks Remy if she was worth all the hardship and pain that he has put himself through, which he confirms. Frank pulls a gun to kill Remy, but Jake turns on his employer, killing him with a knife. Jake then assists Remy in reviving Beth, after which he deposits two explosives inside the organ retrieval unit. The explosion destroys the Union's mainframe, wiping everyone who has an account with the corporation out of the system.

Later, Remy is on a tropical beach, enjoying his freedom with Beth and Jake. His text from earlier in the film has been published into a book, The Repossession Mambo. Remy turns to look at Jake, but sees instead the background flickering and inconherent voices. It is discovered that Remy, in fact, sustained severe brain damage when Jake hit him with the heavy chain earlier in the film. Jake, out of remorse, has paid off Remy's account and has had him placed in a neural network, allowing him to live the rest of his life in a dream. This renders the second half of the film as simply a fantasy of Remy's. Jake finds Remy's manuscript, which he greets with a bitter chuckle, as his former partner is wheeled away, presumably to spend the rest of his life in his fantasy world. The film ends with Frank delivering his sales pitch.

Production

In 2003, screenwriters Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner began collaborating with Miguel Sapochnik on a screenplay based on a novel being written by Garcia. The novel, Repossession Mambo, was published March 31, 2009.

In June 2007, Universal Pictures cast Jude Law and Forest Whitaker into the film, which was Sapochnik's directorial debut. Production began in September 2007. Casting for this film was done by Mindy Marin, production design by David Sandefur, art direction by Dan Yarhi, set decoration by Clive Thomasson, and costume design by Caroline Harris. Filming took place in Toronto, and the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario.

The score to Repo Men was composed by Marco Beltrami, who recorded his score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox.

The film was promoted with a seven-minute comic released on Apple.com on March 15, 2010.

Reception

Critical response

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 23% of 103 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.2 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics, the film holds an overall approval rating of 14%, based on a sample of 21 reviews. The site's general consensus is that "Repo Men has an intriguing premise, as well as a likable pair of leads, but they're wasted on a rote screenplay, indifferent direction, and mind-numbing gore." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 1–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 32 based on 31 reviews.

Box office

Repo Men opened at #4 in its debut weekend with $6,126,170 in 2,521 theaters, averaging $2,430 per theater.

Criticism

There have been noted similarities between the premise of Repo Men and Repo! The Genetic Opera. The director of Repo! The Genetic Opera, Darren Lynn Bousman, has openly stated his displeasure with the similarity of the movie to his own. Repo! was originally proposed to Universal Studios, according to writer Terrance Zdunich. Universal Studios liked the premise but not the musical nature of the film, and ultimately they turned down the offer. Repo! was accepted by Lion's Gate films, Bousman has spoken out about the excessive similarities between the plots that go beyond simple convergence of ideas and are only shy of plagiarism due to "exact lines of dialogue or identical lyrics" not being copied/lifted from Repo!'s script. Terrence Zdunich pointed out in his blog that Repo! The Genetic opera was based on a stage play he started 10 years ago whereas Repo Men is based on a novel Repossession Mambo that was not published until 2009 (Repo! having come out in 2008). He went on to say in the same blog that he was "Satisfied that Darren Smith and I [Zdunich] came up with REPO! long before Repo Men (or Repossession Mambo) came into existence..." and would not be suing for copyright infringement.

Release

It was released on March 19, 2010, having been moved up from an original release date of April 2, 2010. The DVD and Blu-Ray release is set for the 27th July 2010.

External links

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