If flattery is the highest form of compliment, then Hollywood gives more compliments than a politician trying toget funds to get re-elected. But Hollywood is usually a bit less blatant in its compliments than the upcoming film Repo Men is.
Repo Men is the rip off of 2 film predominantly. Logan's Run and Repo! the Genetic Opera. You might have heard of Logan's Run but I doubt you heard of Repo!
The plot is basic. Our hero is running from the bad guys. In this case he is a former repo man - in a world where augmenting the body is a life-saving and profitable business, those that don't pay lose whatever was replaced. Repo men are the guys that collect on the bad debt. Remy (Jude Law) and his partner Jake (Forest Whitaker) are the best at collections. Remy winds up getting an augment, and failing to pay becomes next on the list for collection.
You've seen this movie in Logan's Run, as the former pair of friends now are at odds with each other. You saw a take on the idea in Running Man, as the oppressive authority forces a hero to rise up and the people to join him.
What you didn't see is how it works in a world like this. That's where Repo! comes in.
Given that Repo! had Paris Hilton in it, and it's a musical. 2 great reasons you never saw the film. But ti doesn't make Repo Men any more original. Still the question is if it is a good movie.
Well the film looks better than Repo! which says a lot. Plus it does NOT have Paris Hilton in it, which is a HUGE statement for it's quality.
Forest Whitaker is a great actor. He has been in more than a few great films. So to see him in this adds credibility to the film, and an assurance that it's not a complete waste of time.
Jude Law is also a solid actor and more than capable of a film of this nature. So again this is a plus for the film.
The fact that it copies some of the more time honored ideas in Hollywood, friends as rivals, futuristic drama, decent helpings of actions and new gadgets, helps.
This is yet another non-Oscar worthy film. Which means that someone besides the Oscar community will see it. It will likely give action and sci-fi fans what they are looking for. Some ladies (possibly men too I suppose) will get their fix of Law, and the afrocentric crowd gets Whitaker in a lead support role. It's got almost something for everyone.
I would see this in a theater. It's likely better than most of the films coming out for the 2010 summer blockbuster season. And considering the repercussions of the recession, this will be one of the few films of any note for most of the year. Though it won't be the last rip-off film, it is far from the worst.
2 comments:
Believe it or not, despite the glitzy ad campaign, Hollywood initially wanted nothing to do with Repo Men.
Eric Garcia, later the author of Matchstick Men, had the idea in 1997 as a short story, The Telltale Pancreas, and by 2001 had written the first complete draft of his novel, The Reposession Mambo. Together with his best friend, a screenwriter who is now the executive producer of TV's House, they wrote the script, editing the novels five ex-wives down into a single character among other necessary changes.
They shopped it around, but no studio would touch it until Jude Law's agent forced him to read it during an airplane flight. It was Jude Law's personal involvement that got the ball rolling.
REPO! The Genetic Opera was conceived in 1996, and the first performance of the embryonic 10-minute opera The Necromerchant's Debt was in 1999. REPO! was first performed in 2001 as a 45-minute piece, and ran as a full-length play in 2002. Due to the dedicated and enthusiastic fanbase, it was eventually produced as a film.
Each is the creative work of amazingly talented people, and despite their parallel development, they are both originals.
BlueNight,
Thank you for the greater information on the origins of these 2 films. I stand corrected.
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