Paycheck (2003)
Note: Spoilers.
Perhaps the producers of this film
initially intended to have it directed by a TV veteran
and star someone like Scott Bakula and Holly Marie
Combs. "Paycheck" is essentially the same listless
film you would see on The Sci-Fi Channel except instead
of these less-famous names, it is directed by John
Woo and starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman. Imagine
"Minority Report" made for a cheap cable station and
you've got a pretty good idea what to expect here.
The production values suck and the film looks like
it cost all of a buck-80 to produce.
Affleck is as horrible and wooden
as ever as a "reverse engineer" who takes apart other
people's inventions, improves them, and sells them
to big companies. To escape the moral dilemma of his
thievery and to ensure his employers that he wont
squeal on them, Affleck has his memory wiped away
by some sort of crazy technique that "cooks" his head.
It's just silly.
I'm explaining a lot of the set-up
here and I shouldn't. The film takes for-fucking-ever
setting itself up and the exposition is delivered
at a level even a ten-year-old can understand, so
there's no need for me to tell you about the film's
plot. If you see it, you will be able to comprehend
the story easily, such is its watered down simplicity.
Science Fiction author Phillip K.
Dick, who was nearly undiscovered and vastly unappreciated
in his own lifetime, has had a handful of his novels
and short stories adapted to film over the years.
But Dick was an imaginative and odd person and his
novels are odd and ecclectic. It's hard to imagine
a literal film translation of many of his stories
yet "Blade Runner," "Total Recall" and last year's
"Minority Report (perhaps the most faithful adaptation
of a Dick work yet - hehe - I said dick work...) are
generally considered to be quality adaptations of
his work. Woo cannot even begin to hope to be the
filmmaker that Spielberg or Ridley Scott or Paul Verhoeven
is, and it shows here.
As presented by Woo, "Paycheck"
is seemingly one of Dick's most inane stories with
the big hoopla all revolving around a machine that
somehow curves around the linear nature of time and
in this peeking around the corner, somehow sees the
future. It's really silly and the end of the film
is as obvious as can be. I have not read the source
short story by Dick (I don't think) but I bet you
anything it is vastly superior to anything we see
here.
Yes, mid-way through "Paycheck"
I began to wonder if John Woo was the consummate director
we all thought he was. Maybe we need to go back and
look at "Face-Off" again. Woo's only inspiration here
seems to be having Affleck and Thurman engage in a
martial arts-inspired fight with the baddies at the
end of the film using only a long pole as a weapon.
It seems wholly out of place. Having recently watched
Thurman kick ass in the latest Tarantino fightfest,
we certainly think of her as slumming it here.
And isn't this supposed to be a
futuristic story? There is not a single element, outside
of the projects that Affleck's engineer works on,
that looks like anything futuristic. Not one set,
one location, one prop, one car, one item at all seems
futuristic. I take that back - Thurman has a floating
scaffolding/cherry picker type thingey. But when the
film moves onto locations, it looks just like 2003.
The cars and motorcycles in the chases are all normal.
Okay, so Affleck gets a new Mercedes motorcycle and
I don't think that company makes motorcycles. But
that's the level of "special effects" here. Instead
of futuristic cars, we get Mercedes motorcycles. It's
just stupid.
In every sense of the word, "Paycheck"
shortchanges its audience repeatedly. And the deductions
for stars at the expense of production values makes
this film one that can wait for the more expensive
pay cable stations to pick it up. Hell, you even wait
for Superstation to chop it up and play it. The editing
of this film for TV will not diminish its quality
one iota.
Phillip K. Dick is surely spinning
in his grave. Then again, at least this film isn't
as bad as 1995's "Screamers" (based on Dick's short
story "Second Variety.") At least this film has Paul
Giamatti in it.
Note:
Also with Aaron Eckhart and Joe
Morton.
Woo is also a producer.
Viewed in Austin in December 2003
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