Paycheck (2003)
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 8:40 pm
Critics gave it a terrible score but audience reviews are decent. I liked it. It's based on a Phillip K. Dick story (author of the books that the movies Bladerunner, Minority Report & Total Recall were based on).
Starts out geekY, ends up as a John Woo (yes, he directed it) action adventure flick.
Interesting premise takes place in the near future whereby an electronics genius (played by Ben Affleck) rents himself out to corporations that want to reverse-engineer, and improve on, a competitor's product. Once the job is done he fulfills the ultimate non-disclosure agreement: the entire time he spent working on the project is erased from his mind. He can't ever be compelled to tell anyone what he worked on or how he did it because he can't remember any of it himself. For this he is paid handsomely.
He gets a REALLY big job - the ultimate paycheck - but things don't go as planned and all he has when the job is over is an envelope he mailed to himself full of seemly meaningless items. Meanwhile people want to kill him.
There's a love story in it, so the wife/girlfriend will be entertained.
The movie was a real surprise for me - it was nothing like what I expected. I'd never heard of it before - just saw it recommended on Netflix with decent reviews.
The one odd thing about the movie is that it was filmed in 2003 but takes place in 2007. I don't know why they picked such a close date. It's not long enough for some of the technologies to have occurred yet (holographic displays, anti-gravity lift buckets, memory wipes). It also looks odd watching it from 2013 because all the cars of the "future" look like 2004 models, with no attempt to look futuristic.
I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
http://www.amazon.com/Paycheck-Special- ... B0001NBNDY
Starts out geekY, ends up as a John Woo (yes, he directed it) action adventure flick.
Interesting premise takes place in the near future whereby an electronics genius (played by Ben Affleck) rents himself out to corporations that want to reverse-engineer, and improve on, a competitor's product. Once the job is done he fulfills the ultimate non-disclosure agreement: the entire time he spent working on the project is erased from his mind. He can't ever be compelled to tell anyone what he worked on or how he did it because he can't remember any of it himself. For this he is paid handsomely.
He gets a REALLY big job - the ultimate paycheck - but things don't go as planned and all he has when the job is over is an envelope he mailed to himself full of seemly meaningless items. Meanwhile people want to kill him.
There's a love story in it, so the wife/girlfriend will be entertained.
The movie was a real surprise for me - it was nothing like what I expected. I'd never heard of it before - just saw it recommended on Netflix with decent reviews.
The one odd thing about the movie is that it was filmed in 2003 but takes place in 2007. I don't know why they picked such a close date. It's not long enough for some of the technologies to have occurred yet (holographic displays, anti-gravity lift buckets, memory wipes). It also looks odd watching it from 2013 because all the cars of the "future" look like 2004 models, with no attempt to look futuristic.
I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
http://www.amazon.com/Paycheck-Special- ... B0001NBNDY
