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Monday, March 22, 2010

MOVIE REVIEW
Repo Men
Take The Jarvik St. Exit, But To Escape A Heartless Film


Brothers in arms, lungs, hearts and legs: Jude Law as Remy and Forest Whitaker as Jake in Miguel Sapochnik's
"Repo Men", based on Eric Garcia's novel The Repossession Mambo
Universal Pictures

By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW 
Monday, March 22, 2010

Eric Garcia's novel The Repossession Mambo gets a cinematic upgrade (rather, downgrade) in "Repo Men", directed by Miguel Sapochnik and written by Mr. Garcia and Garrett Lerner.  Forest Whitaker and Jude Law are two members of The Union, a repossession corporation which literally reaches its hands into your body to take back artificial organs that you have defaulted on.  "Repo Men" may well be U.S. Republican politicians' wet dream gone ultra-wild, such is the state of healthcare (which will now change however, with last night's passage of the health care bill in Washington, D.C.)

Be that as it may, "Repo Men", which debuted theatrically in the U.S. and Canada last Friday, shamelessly champions the scrap heap of Kabuki gore fest and fantasy, with Grand Guignol theater that will test even the toughest of constitutions.  Warning: if extreme graphic violence on the big screen is not your pedigree, you would be advised to stay well clear of "Repo Men", whose R-rating is understated.  (An NC-17 tag would have been better.  If you do brave the bloody waters to see this film: can you imagine what the unrated DVD edition will consist of?)

That said, "Repo Men" is also problematic for its editing.  Either the editor (Richard Francis-Bruce) lacked confidence or was simply unsure of how to cut the film.  There are scenes with the potential for emotional impact that you want to see play out, but are interrupted in mid-flow.  There are scenes that go on too long when they should have been cut.  Many of the latter are of the operatic bloodletting and flesh-shredding variety, with close-ups designed to make you flee your local theater or vomit or faint as filmgoers did globally more than 30 years ago when "The Exorcist" and "Alien" were first released.  Of the editing, one audience member could be heard saying that it was "ghastly, a complete horror -- almost as bad as the movie itself."

Indeed, "Repo Men" plays as horror, not as the sci-fi thriller it is intended to be.  And worse yet, it takes itself seriously -- a big mistake.  And it is too long.

Every film from "THX 1138" to "Pulp Fiction" to "Fight Club" to "Minority Report" to "Vanilla Sky" to all things David Cronenberg are represented in "Repo Men", which lacks narrative coherence and common sense.  Narration -- used in at least three of the films mentioned here -- is almost always a tricky device in films.  Narration in "Repo Men" is used then dispensed with, only to return like the troublesome water in a leaky faucet.  As a result the jagged continuity is more a jangle of threads needing a washer or socket foundation than a story about two troubled men. 

Furthermore, Remy (Mr. Law) has a cold-hearted fish for a wife (Carice Van Houten) who is portrayed as irrational and inauthentic for dramatic convenience(!), while Alice Braga's songstress character doesn't have a template at all for the audience to be grounded in. 

Just about the only redeeming quality of "Repo Men" is its music selection.  Reggae, R&B, soul, rock are all flaunted to give a playful or comic edge to the film, but almost all the music is played just as something very awful is, or is about to happen, overwhelming any emotional significance the soundtrack has.

One of the biggest complaints about "Repo Men" is its highly talented cast.  As in: what on earth are they doing in a movie as poor and ridiculous as this?  Mr. Whitaker, the charismatic and humble Oscar winner, has had a bad March on the big screen ("Our Family Wedding") and Mr. Law ("Sherlock Holmes") has seen better days, as has Ms. Van Houten ("Black Book", "Valkyrie").  And there's Liev Schreiber ("Defiance"), playing the CEO of The Union.  It's inexplicable, other than the money, how they made this bad, bad, wicked bad movie.

With: Liza Lapira, Joe Pingue, RZA, Chandler Canterbury, Yvette Nicole Brown.


"Repo Men" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for strong bloody violence, grisly images, language and some sexuality/nudity.  Believe me, the violence is much worse than the description here.  The MPAA made a major mistake rating this film "R".  The film's duration is one hour and 51 minutes.

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Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar here.

Read Omar's "Far-Flung Correspondent" reports for America's pre-eminent Film Critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times - here



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