Repo Men with Jude Law 2010

25 May 2010
CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 19: Actor Jude Law atten...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The movie opens in the not-too-distant future here in America. There seems to be global and economic chaos reigning supreme. We hear a news announcement in the background that “the federal government has announced it will declare bankruptcy within the next 90 days”.

Then the camera slides over a bunch of trash and an overturned grocery cart then hones in on Jude Law. He is being haunted by the question of the scientist who was doing experiments on these cats. He goes on to say that he has no special love for animals nor the plight of what happens to them.

What confused him was the scientist said the cat could be both dead and alive at the same time. This would be a recurring theme of this movie throughout.

In this not-too-distant future some would say it is morally bankrupt. Others would call it morally questionable but it definitely gives you pause.

They have developed the ability to grow artificial organs either through cloning or through actually manufacturing them from scratch. How they do it was never discussed in the movie just the fact that they had all the organs they needed available. Obviously, the corporation who controls these artificial organs has massive power.

And they use that power to totally rape people.

Organs cost $300,000-$600,000. And they offer payment plans at 19% to over 25% interest until you pay it back. Basically it was a lifelong sentence because hardly anyone ever paid off their organs. So they were indentured servants to the artificial organ company for the rest of their lives.

And everyone signed up to get them because it was the only way for some of them live if they needed a heart or a liver.

It had virtually shut down the organ donor list because there is no longer a need for it.

But the side effect was very dire and insidious. Some would even say evil.

Obviously, some people felt they were being treated unfairly. Others just simply couldn’t pay. So what would happen in this instance?

You guessed it… they had repo man for people’s organs.

Somehow they got it passed through Congress that if people don’t pay their bills they have up to 96 days to be delinquent. On day 96 the company sends their repo men after them. Jude Law’s character is one of these repo men.

They actually get to taze the person and then while they are basically unconscious to cut them open and take out whatever organ is artificial. Then they just leave them to die. The rationale is that the person would’ve been long dead already were it not for this artificial organ so it’s not murder.

But it seems very gruesome and vile anyway.

Jude Law’s wife in the movie doesn’t like his job and wants him to switch over to sales. But he’s not much of a salesman and the commissions paid to salesmen aren’t near as high as the commissions paid to the repo men. So there’s a big conflict which goes down because Jude Law won’t give up the good job he has to do what his wife wants.

There are some trust issues and apparently some broken promises made which you know causes great conflict. She takes his son away even though he is attempting to become a salesman.

He has one last job. It’s the old ominous last job.

Something goes terribly wrong when he is using a defibrilator machine which ends up shocking himself. His heart was stopped but thanks to the company he works for assuming he would sign on the dotted line they would give him the artificial heart.

Now is where the irony in this story kicks in because the repo man is now on the clock owing the company basically his life. And you just know something’s going to happen where they’re going to send his former coworker to repossess his heart.

So he’s just woken up out of a coma, he has an artificial heart, his wife and son and left him, so he’s questioning whether his life is worth living right now.

He does end up meeting a new girl and falling in love again. Unfortunately, she is just as sad sack a case as him because she has many artificial organs. And she is well past due on them also.

So the repo men are after them. His only friend in the world is someone he’s known since fourth grade. His friend is also a coworker and one of the repo men.

So you know there’s going to be a confrontation between these two. Finally, his friend reluctantly accepts the bosses command to repo Jude Law’s heart. Jude Law has already killed one of the repo man sent to get it.

There’s a big finish and a total surprise ending that shocked me. Overall this movie started out slow and I wasn’t liking it too much.

But it’s very rare for a movie to surprise me and by the end I really liked this movie. I give it 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.


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 | Posted by movie guy | Categories: movie reviews | Tagged: , , |