Paycheck Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)December 29th, 2003
PAYCHECK
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Engineer Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck, "Daredevil") has an unusual employment situation - he works for an old school buddy, entrepreneur Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart, "The Missing") developing ground-breaking technologies, then has his memory from the project start erased. When Rethrick proposes a two year engagement, Jennings is doubtful, but he changes his mind when he's offered an eight figure "Paycheck."
With "Paycheck" director John Woo ("Windtalkers") continues to lose his luster working in the United States. This mishmash of Philip K. Dick, cheesy romance, Hitchcock references and Woo's own BMW commercials is sadly outdated on delivery. This is the type of exercise where memory erasure is shown by giant floating cells on screen while the subject frowns and sweats and the procedure enters danger levels when someone jostles a computer monitor.
Jennings is introduced as a hot shot engineer (Affleck would convince more as a marketing guy) who plays with floating graphics right out of "Minority Report" and "SimOne." At a party, he meets Dr. Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman, "Kill Bill"), who also works for Rethrick as a biological engineer. She volleys Jenning's lame pickup with come-hither words about second chances. He meets her again at the beginning of his two-year project in a scene that showcases gadgets for reuse later, then a whiteout occurs and Michael has no memory of his project (which is sometimes said to have lasted two years, other times three) nor Rachel (whom he met *before* the project began at Rethrick's party).
When he goes to pick up his paycheck he's told that he refused his stock options by a financial analyst who also points out that he applied five fifty cent stamps to an envelope that only required four (the stamp could also have been animated to squeak 'Look at me! Look at me!). That envelope is supposed to house the personal belongings Michael was required to turn in, for no obvious reason, 2-3 years ago, but its contents - a fortune from a cookie, a lens, a key, hairspray - are not his and the nine items don't match the ten documented (it's the stamp, dummy!) Like "Memento's" tattoos and notes, this odd cache provides Michael's only clues to rebuild the events which caused him to sign away a fortune.
Having not read the original story, I cannot judge whether it or Dean Georgaris's ("Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life") adaptation is guilty of being sloppy, although I suspect the latter. We're subjected to a scene where Shorty (Paul Giamatti, "American Splendor"), Rethrick's memory wiper and Michael's only apparent friend, retrains Michael's reactive speed with Japanese fighting sticks after an eight week erasure, yet after one about twenty times as extreme, this issue is never raised. Woo delivers the action but also throws in stylistic flourishes which now seem like self-parody. Just when I thought he'd content his avian tendencies with a pair of lovebirds, he throws the damned white dove in our faces at a thoroughly incongruous moment.
Affleck is unlikely to win back any points for "Paycheck" although there's nothing really objectionable about the performance. Uma Thurman gets to kick more butt, but she's forced to act like a goofy girl from a 1960s cop show. Eckhart and Colm Feore ("National Security" - the poor guys been in two of the worst films of 2003) both indulge Woo with doubled gun scenes. Only Paul Giamatti really satisfies as a loyal sidekick to Affleck.
"Paycheck" is sloppy and cheesy, yet features some guilty if groan-inducing pleasures, just like an overloaded pizza delivered late at night.
C-
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