Review of Repo Men (2010) by Robert L — 14 Jan 2011

Possession is nine tenths of the film.

Jude Law has never made it as a leading man, despite several attempts by Hollywood to make this dream a reality, the latest one is Repo Men, however will it be marshal Law or will he be hey Jude?

Repo Men is the first big budget outing for the writer (Garrett Lerner) and director (Miguel Sapochnik) so how much can it deliver? It's based on a book by the same man behind Matchstick Men but how will Eric Garcia's novel translate into the action thriller genre?

Firstly, it should be said that Repo Men does a series of things right (which I will get to in a moment) however maybe it's because of the greeness of the writer and director or maybe it's because no one has confidence in Jude Law any more but the overall feel of Repo Men is messy. The movie will quite happily jog along as an action film only to switch gears randomly and become a drama, and just when it starts to get somewhere it mutates again into a thriller then back into an action, then a sci fi, then comedy, so it feels like it can never quite make up it's own mind what it really is and for this the whole film suffers, all films need an identity and Repo Men struggles with that.

What Repo Men does do is borrow liberally from several other films we have seen before (most prominently Terry Gilliam's "Brazil"). That's not to say it doesn't have any ideas of it's own, only that the vast percentage of screen time and elements are lifted from other movies. I like the cinematography, and I like the brutal edges of the movie, I like the reality that is portrayed in the film, I also like the vision of the future that Eric Garcia has envisioned, somewhere between The 6th Day's version, Minority Report and A.I.. This is a hardly "fresh" look by any means but it doesn't really need to be, because Repo Men has something else running in it's favour. You won't see anything new in Repo Men but you might see it rearranged in a new order.

Finally, Jude Law carries the film. He works hard to achieve it and he is both committed and dedicated to his character Remy. Also, for many parts of the film Law narrates. Now it might just be me but I enjoy a good chunk of narration in my movies, and maybe it's because I'm British and so is he, but I think a British accent is the best to narrate movies. Remy is a complicated character for any actor to play with much of his persona left up for question, but somehow Law ties him down just enough for him to work.

As usual the unsung hero of the film is Schriber, who, much as I love to watch, am glad he is still a supporting man because personally I like seeing him randomly turn up in places always looking calm and professional, and that's just how he looks as Remy's boss Frank. Somewhere in the movie is Forest Whitaker who plays his standard ambiguously moral role and brings us nothing new.

There isn't anything new or ground braking about Repo Men, you've seen it all before, but it has an interesting view of the future and also explores something that is inevitable in the world we live in, also FINALLY JUDE LAW arrives.