Friday 15 July 2016

Repo Men (2010)



If you have any interest in seeing this movie unspoiled, you should probably skip this review.

Though really, you should probably just accept my word for it that it's not worth your time.

Still here?  Okay, let's begin.

So the premise of this film is that some time in the near future, artificial organs have become a consumer technology.  You can buy a replacement heart, or liver, or whatever else you want, simply by walking into a store and laying down the cash.  And if you don't have the cash, well they have a range of repayment plans for you to choose from.  Fall too far behind on said repayments though, and the organ in question will be forcibly repossessed, with generally fatal consequences.

So far, so Repo: The Genetic Opera.  Now obviously it's errant nonsense that a company can flat out murder you for being a few months behind on your payments, but my suspenders of disbelief are pretty sturdy so sure, I'll go with it.

Our protagonist, Remy, is one of the repo men charged with recovering insolvent organ owners.  He does so cheerfully and efficiently, chatting amiably with his colleagues about the "deadbeats" he's processed.  All that changes, though, when a work accident leaves him with an artificial heart of his own.  Suddenly he finds himself feeling empathy for those he would previously have killed out of hand.  Which means he earns no income.  Which means he falls behind on the payments for his heart.  The hunter is about to become the hunted.

So now we're yoinking the premise of Logan's Run as well?  Okay then.

Anyway, Remy goes on the run, meets a woman, and has one of those bad-movie romances where "we have spent time together on screen and have differing genitals" is enough for two people to hook up.  Oh, and his best friend is sent out to bring him in.

... so yoinking a lot more than just the premise of Logan's Run then.  I see.

So now we have all the pieces in the place for the last act of the film, and Remy comes up with a mind-bogglingly stupid plan that I would normally spend a couple of paragraphs ranting about.  But I don't need to, because the last act of the film, in which he executes said plan, is all a goddamn dream.  You see, his best buddy smacked him in the head during a fight scene half an hour earlier, and he never really woke up from that.  He's been in a coma ever since.

Now you may be wondering why Remy is still alive if his heart has been repossessed.  Don't worry, the movie has an explanation for that.  An explanation even dumber than "it was all a dream", in fact.  You see, best buddy paid off Remy's heart, and then paid for the cutting edge neural implant that ensures Remy has an awesome dream life in his coma.

Did it not ever occur to this dingbat to just pay for Remy's heart to begin with, rather than putting him in a coma and (presumably) murdering his new girlfriend?

Mind-blowingly stupid.

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