Paycheck

Review by George O. Singleton

for Reel Movie Critic

H ½

Cast

Ben Affleck Michael Jennings

Uma Thurman Rachel

Directed by John Woo. Sci-Fi, thriller. PG-13 for intense action violence and brief language. Paramount Pictures. Running time 110 minutes.

Michael (Ben Affleck) is a reverse engineering genius who clones products for corporations (by deconstructing the technology in reverse order), and makes them better than the original design. Sort of like a guy that could make a version of Windows that would never crash! That is a futuristic. One of the things Michael does early in the film is take the technology of a top selling 3D-television one step further, when he develops a new image device, a hologram ¾ no TV set required. The unscrupulous companies he works for then deprogram him, erasing his memory, after the job is done. With a handsome paycheck of $500,000 or more Michael is able to live the high life, minus a few bits of memory in his brain chips.

The usual assignment takes about eight weeks, and that's pushing it. Michael is offered a big project that will take three years of his life, and his motivation is that it's that "one last job" that will set him up for life. If he's successful, he'll get stock options (and we know what a mirage that can be), but even if he's not, he'll make well into the seven figures.

The set up of the film is better than the payoff. Once he can see into the future, Michael realizes that "if you know your future, you have no future." The plot runs with that and it becomes silly. "Paycheck" has the one-step-ahead action of "The Italian Job" with a similar feel, and although we wanted to buy into the story, it comes across more as a commercial than an alternate reality, science fiction action film. It's not a bad movie, but a hyped-up one.

With the tabloid overexposure of Ben Affleck, it takes some effort to just look at him in this film as only an actor. Neither of us has seen "Gigli," and that helps somewhat, for more reasons than one we gather. Both of us liked him in "The Sum of All Fears" but we were less than thrilled with him in "Daredevil." George did not care for "Changing Lanes" but Pam really liked it. The fact that "Paycheck" is directed by John Woo ("Mission: Impossible II," "Face/Off") and has a strong supporting cast allowed us to see the film with a relatively open mind. Though, one "dueling guns" scene came straight from "Face/Off."

Joe Morton, a fine actor, delivers his usual strong supporting role of being a good guy. Paul Giamatti ("American Splendor") is great as Michael's science whiz sidekick. And keeping it somewhat real and exciting is Uma Thurman, who brings some of the pizzazz of "Kill Bill: Vol 1" to the story. If you buy into the "camp" factor of the film, it can actually be fun.