Review of Paycheck (2003) by Cort S — 20 Jun 2016
Paycheck starts off well enough. Ben Affleck, wearing douche bag sunglasses, is a reverse engineer. He is paid to duplicate and, hopefully, improve existing technology. After project completion, his memory of the project is erased from Affleck.
His character is shallow, with shallow relationships and seemingly no immediate family. He is given a three-year project, which includes the standard memory-erasing clause. At the end of the project, he immediately senses that something is wrong.
He has only clues to help him weave through a tangled web of chaos. In theory, it's a pretty good premise. However, after a solid beginning, the film struggles with execution. There are too many movie cliches -- the long car chase scenes, the shoot outs that go on forever and involve the token catwalk.
Affleck's acting is not great either. He seems disingenuous throughout the whole film and lacks the depth to convincing convey the proper emotions toward the leading lady, Uma Thurman. Uma Thurman is a bright spot in the film, managing to turn ridiculous lines and horrible directing into the character with the most depth.
This review of Paycheck (2003) was written by Cort S on 20 Jun 2016.
Paycheck has generally received mixed reviews.
Was this review helpful?
