Ever worry about organ failure? In the not too distant future, a shadowy corporation called ‘The Union’ will replace your failing organs with mechanical equivalents, all for a $700,000 price tag with a 19% APR. If that’s not enough to entice you, if you can’t pay within 90 days, repo men will forcibly remove the organs from your body, take them back for resale and leave you for dead. Unsurprisingly, it turns out most people can’t pay and the organ-repo industry is one sector where business is steadily booming
Remy (Law) is one such repo man, the best in his department along with his childhood buddy Jake (Forest Whitaker). Unfortunately for Remy, a near-death accident whilst on the job leaves him with a top-of-the range replacement heart and the bills mounting up. With 90 days on the clock and an unsteady hand preventing him from removing organs on the job, Remy finds himself being forced to violently turn the tables on the very company he works for.
Repo Men is destined to become a cult oddity, a B-movie favourite for those late Saturday nights. Repo Men shouldn’t work, it doesn’t just take influence from cult sci-fi hits such as The Matrix, Blade Runner and Old Boy as it does shamelessly steal their best bits and give the audience the middle finger. Whilst it may sound completely farcical, Repo Men never quite descends into parody, mostly due to its extremely confident tone and ‘go for broke’ approach.
With a hyper-kinetic style reminiscent of Crank and Shoot ‘em up, Repo Men has no qualms about positioning itself as a morally ambiguous, ultra violent sci-fi actioneer. First time feature-director Miguel Sapochnik has embedded Repo Men with a knowing, playful sense of humour, Law appears to be having the time of his life unquestionably slicing and dissecting everything that comes into his path. This is a film that has set out to be dark, mischievous fun and for the most part, it succeeds.
That’s not to say it’s a great film by any means, the pacing falters midway before giving way to an outrageously gory finale and aside from a bizarre live autopsy scene laden with sexual overtones, Repo Men has nary an original bone in its speedy 111 minute run time. However Repo Men isn’t set on being food for thought, or even something that’s easy to digest. Repo Men just wants to push the boat out in terms of good, gory fun.
Jonny Dawson
