Paycheck



I found Paycheck a very entertaining movie, if a little disappointing. As a long time John Woo fan I'm waiting for him to make his first really great American movie, but I'm going to have to keep on waiting.Paycheck is basically just another man-on-the-run-from-a-conspiracy movie, with a high concept sci-fi twist that's never fully explored. On the other hand, the chase scenes are really well done. It's amazing how much of John Woo's style has been appropriated by other, lesser action directors.


"Jennifer looking at china patterns... Must run!"

Based on a story by Philip K. Dick, Ben Affleck plays Michael, a reverse engineer of the near future who is so in demand that he has his memory erased after each job, so he can work on sensitive projects at competing companies. He takes a job at a company called Allcom, run by a old friend. Three years later his memory is wiped, but now the FBI is after him for helping to build some device. michael is also a little upset to find out that he gave away his paycheck and instead sent himself seemingly ordinary twenty objects. Soon Michael figures out that he sent himself the objects because they are exactly what he needs... the machine he helped build can see the future! It's kind of like a whole movie based on that scene from Minority Report (another movie based on a Philip K. Dick story) where Agatha is telling Anderton what to do to get out of the mall.

Any time you deal with time travel (or in this case, time viewing), they are inherent paradoxes. Those don't bother me. But there are plenty of points where characters' motivations become fuzzy. Towards the end Michael and the girlfriend he doesn't remember (Uma Thurman, still looking cut from Kill Bill) break into Allcom to destroy the machine, but then suddenly decide to use the machine one last time. To do this they have to undo some sabotage Michael did pre-memory wipe. It seems like an awful lot of work to do when all they want to do is destroy it. Later a line of dialogue suggests they need to use it to find a way out of the building, but really, that should have been established earlier. If Paycheck had just have a better script it could have been a great movie, instead it's just a good timewaster.

Posted: Thu - December 25, 2003 at      

©