Category: Films

Repo Men [2010]

Director: Miguel Sapochnik
Actor: Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga, Liev Schreiber, Carice van Houten

It’s been a long time since I’ve reviewed a film, other projects and a string of less than stellar films were the reason for my disinterest in devoting time to an extensive review, but I’ve decided to do a review of Repo Men, mostly because I wasn’t disappointed by it, nor found the subject matter absolutely impossible to tackle in a meaningful review. (Which was the reason why I never reviewed A Single Man, simply because it was a little bit too much for me to handle and still do it justice.) No, I had absolutely no expectations other than that it wouldn’t be Citizen Kane, which probably went a long way to making this film the an enjoyable one. Well, that and the extensive amounts of gore.

.: Online
I have been following the development and the marketing campaign behind the film for a little over six months now and I have to say that it came close to the brilliance displayed in the campaign to promote District 9, with seemingly life-like, high resolution posters (see below) advertising living irresponsibly, drinking excessively and eating all the junk-food you could lay your greedy hands on since “The Union Cares.” You can have all your organs replaced with cybernetic “artiforgs” that often work better and longer than your normal, flesh-lumps would. You could get your heart replaced for a mere 975,000 dollars with an 18% APR on the first year and 24% the following years. In this fashion the Union provides hearts, kidneys, eyes, spines, livers and limbs. Check out the brilliantly designed http://www.theunioncares.com, the official site of The Union, and see which Union payment plans suit your lifestyle!

Brilliant, just brilliant. I always like it when they supplement an already compelling and extensive fictional universe with well thought out and designed cross-overs into our own world, blurring the lines between the real and the fictional and creating a deeper, more immersive film experience.

.: The Story
The Union is a company selling artificial organs to anyone willing to extend their life by cybernetic means. Repo Men repossess the organs from people who are more than 3 months overdue with their payments, breaking into houses, knocking people unconscious while asking a series of standard questions before cutting you open on your kitchen floor and retrieving the liver you decided not to make payments on.

“Would you like to have an ambulance present to drive you to the hospital after I’m done with the procedure?”
“Are they going to give me a new heart?”
“No, not with your credit history.”

The Union works the same way credit cards companies do, offering you a product that will allow you to extend an already toxic lifestyle into infinity, while making huge amounts of money off the interest you pay on the loans they offer to pay for these life extending products. Some people take great care in making sure to pay off the loans on time, but most people tend to fall behind on the enormous payments they’ll have to make. And that’s where the Union makes their money, retrieving the organs and selling them to someone else and starting the cycle all over again.

Remy (Law) is a level 5 Repo Man, the best in the business, working alongside his best friend Jake (Whitaker), who have been inseparable since the third grade, went to school together, went into the military together, shared everything together. Then married Carol (van Houten) and had a son and slowly but surely Carol wants Remy to do less dangerous work, pressuring him to take a job in sales. Obviously reluctant to give up the life of a repo man, Remy keeps putting off talking to his his boss, Frank (Schreiber), who runs the local Union branch, being too content to repo other people’s organs with his friend Jake. His entire world is turned upside down when he decides to do one last repo and something goes wrong and he gets hurt. After having spent a few days in a coma he wakes up with an artiforg heart (including the stranglehold contract) and his wife unwilling to continue with the relationship. More importantly, he finds himself strangely afflicted by a conscience, unable to perform the repos that he used to do with ease. His savings dwindle and he quickly falls behind on his payments until he is driven into the company of Beth (Braga) a girl he always admired from afar who’s dealing with the same trouble as he is. The both of them decide to run, hiding out in the abundant dilapidated tenements in the ghetto’s, far away from the skyscrapers and the luxury of the life he came from and hunted by his ex-colleagues who are trying to repo his heart.

.: The Production
The production on this film is beautiful, allowing the sleek design of hypermodernity to stand beautifully juxtaposed against the excessive violence, the gory repos and the deplorable state of the ghettos. It’s a post-modern world where people have embraced the seamless integration of man and machine without their being an emphasis on overly cybered individuals, which is often the case with films that depict worlds where people opt for cybernetic modification of their bodies. The worst you see is a man with an obvious cybernetic limb, the rest of the cybernetics are all subtle, seemless and discrete. Not that there aren’t cybernetic freaks, but that’s not what the films focusses on as it looks at what happens when a normal person falls behind on payments. It would’ve been too easy to inject the film with too many displays of the fringe cyberfreaks. (Not that it wouldn’t have been fun, I just admire the self-restraint.)

The acting is average, but Whitaker once again takes the crown, closely followed by the overlooked Schreiber-powerhouse. Seriously, why don’t we see more of these two guys? Jude Law looks in shape without being overly muscled, just about what I would expect his character to look like, but his effete accent is somewhat out of place. Braga does not deliver a particularly good performance, but she does seem to fit the roll well. I have the feeling that van Houten’s performance mostly ended up on the editing room floor. It ended up being a distraction and not much of a critical plot element.

All in all, it’s an enjoyable film, with great visuals and a compelling universe and a rock solid performance by Whitaker who seems to be getting better and better with each time I see him on the silver screen.

.: The Trailer

.: The Posters

Poster – Live Irresponsibly
Poster 1 [HD]
Poster 2 [HD]
Poster 3 [HD]
Poster 4 [HD]
Poster 5 [HD]

Tyson [2008]

Director: James Toback
Actor: Mike Tyson

.: Review
The best example I can come up with of a film that builds up your affection for the characters you’re watching, only to completely break it all down, is Goodfellas. It does it so masterfully that you don’t even care that the characters you’re rooting for are really amoral and intensely bad people. Hollywood, like many other film industries, likes to root for the bad guys. It likes to root for the underdog, and it likes drama.

And Mike Tyson delivered all of that.

This documentary chronicles the life of Mike Tyson, narrated by Mike Tyson in his now almost iconic, high-pitched, rambling, ranting way. It starts with him talking about his childhood, about the crimes and the drugs and the juvenile detention centers. How he found boxing and how he was taken in by his first trainer, Cus D’Amato. How he lived in his house, was trained by him, in both the mental as well as the physical art of fighting. D’Amato was everything to him, the very first person to ever make him believe in himself. The way Tyson talks about him is very moving, very touching. Very honest. I guess that’s the prevailing sense; honesty. He tells things how they happened, either real or imagined.

It’s obvious he’s a deeply troubled individual with some deep-rooted psychological problems. He’s beyond redemption, knowing that he’s broken but ultimately unable to fix things. You can see that he’s older, wiser and that the sharp edge in his personality has dulled considerably. He’s got his rage under control to the point where he can discuss his problems without getting angry, without losing his temper and without lashing out at everything and everyone.

He’s also, obviously one of the most gifted boxers to ever live. The reason he started losing later on in his career, after he went to jail, is because of either complacency or his inner demons standing in his way. But when he was in his prime, his speed was crazy and his punching power far above that of his size; a small heavy weight at 220 pounds. His footwork, his stamina, his ferocity and his accuracy were only matched by his speed and power. It’s amazing to watching him shadowboxing at the age of 18.

This documentary is a recommendation for anyone with an interest in boxing, Tyson, or to watch someone tell the story of his own self-created trainwreck.

.: Trailer

District 9 [2009]

Director: Neill Blomkamp
Actor: Sharlto Copley

.: Introduction
I was really surprised at the premise of this film when I first learned about it. Relatively inexperienced director. First time actor as the lead role. Aliens come to the planet, but they are relatively retarded and without guidance. It’s set in Johannesburg. I’ll let that sink in for a second. Let me repeat; it’s set in Johannesburg. Did you get that? Sometimes you’ll see a film that picks one of these and manages to achieve critical acclaim and then that’s all that’s being talked about, how the director had next to no experience besides some music videos or how the actor turns out to be the hottest new breakthrough prospect out on the market. This film was pretty ambitious down to its amazing marketing gimmick of putting up anti-alien posters all over major U.S. cities with no further explanation. I’m rambling a bit but I think I’m getting across just how unusual this film is and that if things had gone just a little differently, the delicate promotional equilibrium would’ve been disturbed and we would’ve never been able to see this film. Especially in the era of mega-budgets hardly anyone really wants to take a chance with something out of the left field (out of the far, far, faaaar left field) and hope to see some return on investment.

.: Set up
Aliens have come to earth in a gigantic craft that eventually settles above Johannesburg, South Africa. For long months nothing happens and unrest pressures the South African into action. They contract a private security firm called Multi-National United (MNU), a la KBR and Blackwater, to breach the craft and see what’s going on inside the craft. They do so and it turns out that the aliens inside are actually the “worker” aliens, not too bright, with under-evolved intellects, who are severely malnourished and neglected. There’s no sign of the leadership and the aliens are taken off the ship and put in internment camps on the outskirts of the city.

Years later aliens are given a limited form of citizenship and are treated as degenerates, the symbolic nod to apartheid is unmistakable. Communication with them is difficult and they seem really primal, concerned with few things like procreation and food. Nigerian gangster have taken hold of almost all trade within District 9 as they provide prostitutes and cat-food, which apparently is like a drug to the aliens, who, due to their appearance, are referred to as “prawns.” In return, they will accept almost all alien technology, especially weaponry. Sadly, the alien technology can only be used if the wielder has prawn DNA, so it’s useless to humans, something MNU has been researching from the moment their soldiers breached the craft and found the aliens inside.

.: Wikus
Queue Wikus van de Merwe (Copley), a bureaucrat at MNU, the company who has been charged with the welfare of the prawns but are secretly only interested in their weapon technology. He is the subject of a documentary on the move of the prawns from District 9 to a different camp outside of Johannesburg after growing disapproval of their presence from citizens of the city. The documentarists follow him around as he prepares to head out to District 9 to deliver notices on the move to the prawns. They can’t just move them, since that would be illegal, so they have to deliver notices to each of the inhabitants of District 9. At the same time, they’ll do a sweep for contraband like dangerous alien technology. Wikus seems inept and is disrespected by the mercenary units under the MNU employ for what they consider to be weakness.

While delivering the notices in District 9 he stumbles upon what he thinks is a cache of alien weaponry. He tinkers around with a small device that accidentally discharges and sprays him with a strange black mucus. Because he’s being filmed for the documentary he shrugs it off and tries to get the documentarists to cut that part from the film. They continue with their mission and while not everything goes according to plan, it went well. Later, he starts to feel ill and a strange transformation starts to take place… Oooeerr!

.: Verdict
This film is absolutely awesome and I recommend everyone who likes science fiction films to have a look at it. It’s new, it’s refreshing and the production is superb, especially consider the relative inexperience of the film’s makers. I’m looking forward to seeing where the careers of the director and main actor are going to go. I’m hoping that Copley will pick up the reigns that Christopher Lambert left vacant as his career degenerated into nothingness as the go-to-guy for kind of out there science fiction leads.

Wikus accidentally discharges an alien device.