Review of Paycheck (2003) by Stuart K — 04 Sep 2011

Based upon Philip K. Dick's 1953 short story which first appeared in Imagination magazine, and brought to the screen by action maestro John Woo. It is a very silly film, but it has all of Woo's trademark action on display and dispite a few changes, it's one of the few faithful adaptations of Dick's works in recent years.

This has engineer Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), whose job it is to study his competitors' technologies, and recreate it with improvements, however long it takes him, he is paid handsomely for it but his memory is wiped of how he did it for security reasons.

He is approached by old college chum James Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart) to spend 3 years recreating a technology that looks to be revolutionary. Jennings does so, and his memory is wiped of how he did afterwards, he is owed $92 million, however it turns out he gave it away as company stock and an envelope of his personal possessions has been replaced with an assortment of random objects, but it turns out they're clues to what he's been working on, and with help from Dr.

Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman), they discover what Rethrick has been working on, but Jennings is on the run from the FBI as well. It's a think piece, but it's not as intelligent as it looks, as it has Woo repeating action stuff from his previous films like white doves.

a motorbike chase and a Mexican Standoff, but this is blessed with a good supporting cast including Paul Giamatti, Joe Morton and Michael C. Hall.