This is a film whose entire storyline – as slim as it is – seems to have been inspired by a sketch in Monty Python's MEANING OF LIFE, which has a sketch of a pensioner losing their liver to a couple of repossession men. Well, those men are brought to life in this futuristic thriller which fills its running time with gobbets of surgical gore and a man-on-the-run narrative that will be overly familiar to even the most intermittent of modern film viewers. Jude Law is cocky and rather irritating as a brutish, cold-hearted rent collector type who finds himself on the run when his former colleagues turn against him.

The look and feel of the film is very similar to Spielberg's MINORITY REPORT, albeit with a lower budget, and it's clear that there are some major problems here. The whole thing takes nearly an hour to get going before it starts to pick up momentum and become interesting, and then it seems to finish all too quickly. Also, for a movie advertised as an action thriller, it's rather light on the action; a stunning, OLDBOY-inspired corridor fight at the climax helps to make up for this, but it's not quite enough. And don't get me started on the absolutely stupid twist ending, which sucks out all the visceral enjoyment the viewer has just taken from the production.

Despite the flaws and general coldness of the production, it's difficult to dislike REPO MEN. It's clear that this was written and created by young, slightly immature men content to riff on previously explored topics rather than delivering genuinely innovative product, but it still delivers on a superficial level; you want to know what happens next, and the thrills satisfy. The cast are perfunctory: Alice Braga and Liev Schreiber make virtually no impact in highly predictable supporting roles, and while Forest Whitaker gets a little more of a look in, even he doesn't get a great deal to work with. Law, meanwhile, plays it off-hand and it doesn't work; he needed to be much more tortured for a role like this. It's not bad as it stands, but it could have been a whole lot more with some real maturity applied to the premise.

In the near future, a mega company called 'The Union' has sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs that can be bought on credit. When the customers can't pay, they bring in Repo Men. Remy (Jude Law) is one of those repo men. Jake (Forest Whitaker) is a fellow repo man and a brute. Remy has known Jake since childhood when Jake was a big bully. Frank (Liev Schreiber) is the cold hearted organ salesman. After a failed extraction with a faulty shocker, Remy is given an artificial heart. His wife kicks him out for still keeping the job. That's when he starts having difficulties with his job.

It's a fascinating sci-fi concept. The audience badly needs a reason to root for these characters. It takes way too long to get the story to where Remy becomes compelling. It could easily chop off a chunk from the first half to speed up the pacing. The visual style has a slight Blade Runner vibe added to today's Toronto. It's not the best mid-range movie with big budget aspirations. The effects are not up to the top levels, and the action could be better. So could the movie have been much better.

In the near future, the company "The Union" provides expensive prosthesis to improve the lives of the clients. However, the company sends repo men to retrieve the artificial organs for those that do not pay the installments. The former soldiers Remy (Jude Law) and his best friend Jake (Forest Whitaker) are among the best repo men of the company; however Remy's job cost his marriage and his wife Carol (Carice van Houten) leaves him. When Remy is ready to request to be transferred to the sales department expecting to save his marriage, he has an accident with a defibrillator and he needs heart transplantation. The prosthesis is very expensive and Remy changes his behavior after the medical procedure, and he is no longer capable of chasing the debtors. Meanwhile Remy helps the singer Beth (Alice Braga),who owes a large amount to The Union, and sooner they are chased by the repo men.

"Repo Man" is a gore and violent film with a predictable plot. The story has a poor description of this futuristic society, where a corporation has the power of God, tricking clients and using abusive means to retrieve the prostheses from those that do not pay the bill. When we see the line of production, it is hard to believe that the prostheses are so expensive that the company needs to retrieve them. If the intention is to intimidate the clients to pay, this type of marketing would never work. Therefore, the principle of the story is stupid and contradictory. The conclusion is totally predictable and disappointing. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Os Coletores" ("The Collectors")