THE CRITIC-AL LIST
Reviews by Alan Jones
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Salt
The Expendables
The Last Airbender
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Predators
The Twilight Saga:Eclipse
Toy Story 3
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Repo Men
The Collector
Clash of the Titans
Shelter
How To Train Your Dragon
Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The Rise OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Miguel Sapochnik. Starring Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Liev Schreiber, RZA, Alice Braga, Carice van Houten. Action thriller, USA, 100 min.

Pssst! Wanna see another version of REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA, but without the songs, sense or style? Then look no further than Miguel Sapochnik’s tedious adaptation of Eric Garcia’s novel ‘The Repossession Mambo’ – a great title, pity they changed it – that doesn’t have an original bone in its faux futuristic body.

LOGAN’S RUN, OPEN YOUR EYES, FAHRENHEIT 451, BRAZIL, CHILDREN OF MEN, BLADE RUNNER…you name it and its Dystopian neon look or Big Brother story threads have been grafted into this uninvolving mess of sci-fi action thriller, black comedy and statement about the shocking state of pre-Barack Obama US health insurance. Directed in a fragmented and uncertain way by Sapochnik (who has a tenuous Danny Boyle crew connection), Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) are top Repo Men working for a venal profit-driven corporation known as The Union. Their job is to hunt down defaulting recipients of synthetic organ transplants who’ve fallen behind on the extortionate payment scheme, then surgically retrieve company property. An on-the-job accident means Remy is given a state-of-the-art heart and expected to work all hours to keep his boss creditors at bay too. But this change of heart isn’t just physical, it’s mental too (ooh, the thematic cleverness), and now questioning his bounty hunter ways, Remy disappears into the lawless underclass with torch singer Beth (Alice Braga, Sonia’s niece) to formulate a daring plan to get them off the debtor list once and for all. Deviating from familiar territory in a few inspired instances – the nine-year-old black market surgeon, the use of pop nostalgia to underline the ‘more things stay the same etc’ moral and the quite brilliant wound-fisting erotic operation that graces the climax – none of it is enough to disguise the basic ordinariness of the premise that feels so old-fashioned now anyway. Not helped by Sapochnik shamelessly ripping off sequences from far better movies, the best example the one-take OLDBOY inspired corridor fight that Remy endures to get behind the all-important Pink Door at The Union HQ. I saw REPO MEN at the National Press Show where, just before it started, a famous critic who shall remain nameless said “Let’s hope Jude Law gets punched a lot, that’ll cheer me up and keep me awake”. A man after my own heart! Law has never been leading man material to me and here he’s half-strength as usual, severely restricting any empathy vitally needed in such a cartoon cut out conceit. And at times you’d swear he was channeling Michael Barrymore.

While ultra-gory in a way that may placate the easily pleased, most of the slam-bang falls into the 'no thank you ma’am' category and Garcia should seriously think about repossessing his property and putting it back into a properly focused movie.

Alan Jones

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2010
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