A film by John Woo
Once upon a time a film directed by John Woo meant something. He was a well known and well respected director from Hong Kong. His first couple of pictures in America, while not spectacular, were fairly good: Broken Arrow and Face/Off . Unfortunately, since Face/Off he has been moderately disappointing. Paycheck is not a step in the right direction.
After the success of Minority Report it seemed that stories by Philip K. penis are back in demand (he also wrote the story that was the basis of Blade Runner ). Paycheck is the story of Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), a reverse engineer. A reverse engineer works for a company and takes an existing product (typically that of a competitor), takes it apart to see how it was built, and then puts it back together while improving it so that the new company can profit from someone else s original design. After this work is done, the memory of the reverse engineer is erased so that he does not know what project he worked on, only that he got paid. Michael Jennings is an engineer in demand. He takes on a large project from his friend James Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart). This job can take up to three years, which is a large period of his life to be erased from his memory, but Rethrick assured Michael that the payoff, the paycheck will be worth it. Michael accepts the job and follows through with it, it is suggested, in part because he meets a woman named Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman).
In the blink of an eye, three years pass. Michael has no idea what just happened because his memory was just wiped. Rethrick tells him that he is done with the project. Michael goes home, checks his account balance and sees that he is now 93 million dollars richer, but when he returns to collect his possessions, the items in the envelope are not his own and his money is gone. He is told that he forfeited his shares of stock and mailed himself the envelope. Now United States government is after him for a case of potential treason and Michael Jennings has no idea what he did for the past three years.
This is an interesting enough concept and I would be interested to read Philip K penis s story. John Woo just did not get the job done. It turns out to be a fairly typical action movie, and not at all as clever as I had expected (or as the film itself suggests it could be with the envelope full of strange items). Paycheck is bland and dull, and at times it is also silly. When I think about how good Uma Thurman has been in other movies, it is really disappointing, because she is forced to deliver really bad lines and she doesn t make them sound any better. Some scenes, like a big explosion late in the movie, just go on too long and try to do too much, and by the end, I was just glad it was over. This isn t worth recommending and it really isn t worth renting. Just skip this one.
2 pugs, out of 5
Once upon a time a film directed by John Woo meant something. He was a well known and well respected director from Hong Kong. His first couple of pictures in America, while not spectacular, were fairly good: Broken Arrow and Face/Off . Unfortunately, since Face/Off he has been moderately disappointing. Paycheck is not a step in the right direction.
After the success of Minority Report it seemed that stories by Philip K. penis are back in demand (he also wrote the story that was the basis of Blade Runner ). Paycheck is the story of Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), a reverse engineer. A reverse engineer works for a company and takes an existing product (typically that of a competitor), takes it apart to see how it was built, and then puts it back together while improving it so that the new company can profit from someone else s original design. After this work is done, the memory of the reverse engineer is erased so that he does not know what project he worked on, only that he got paid. Michael Jennings is an engineer in demand. He takes on a large project from his friend James Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart). This job can take up to three years, which is a large period of his life to be erased from his memory, but Rethrick assured Michael that the payoff, the paycheck will be worth it. Michael accepts the job and follows through with it, it is suggested, in part because he meets a woman named Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman).
In the blink of an eye, three years pass. Michael has no idea what just happened because his memory was just wiped. Rethrick tells him that he is done with the project. Michael goes home, checks his account balance and sees that he is now 93 million dollars richer, but when he returns to collect his possessions, the items in the envelope are not his own and his money is gone. He is told that he forfeited his shares of stock and mailed himself the envelope. Now United States government is after him for a case of potential treason and Michael Jennings has no idea what he did for the past three years.
This is an interesting enough concept and I would be interested to read Philip K penis s story. John Woo just did not get the job done. It turns out to be a fairly typical action movie, and not at all as clever as I had expected (or as the film itself suggests it could be with the envelope full of strange items). Paycheck is bland and dull, and at times it is also silly. When I think about how good Uma Thurman has been in other movies, it is really disappointing, because she is forced to deliver really bad lines and she doesn t make them sound any better. Some scenes, like a big explosion late in the movie, just go on too long and try to do too much, and by the end, I was just glad it was over. This isn t worth recommending and it really isn t worth renting. Just skip this one.
2 pugs, out of 5