Paycheck

Year: 2003

Grade: C+

Country: USA

Director: Woo

Review

if you’re going to watch this film and expect realism or a brilliant romantic action film then you should probably change your expectations. i knew what this film was going to be before i watched it. i know that woo is over the hill and that this was going to be a pretty stock studio film. philip k. dick is like the junior sci-fi version of stephen king – he’s got a few good ideas that he just keeps recycling in semi-different ways…this one is a cross between total recall and minority report. ben affleck was suitable in the sum of all fears where there was less of an emphasis on action scenes, but he just doesn’t have the chops for a john woo flick. the story was fairly obvious, but still sort of compelling. it had an interesting plot device built in – all the normal close shaves that a typical hollywood hero might encounter were foreseen by affleck’s character because of the machine he helped build. as a result the audience is allowed to suspend their disbelief just a little bit more, knowing that affleck has already given himself the tools to conveniently get out of any jam he may find himself in. this eliminates the macgyver/batman problem wherein the hero has to find a way to justify to the audience his ability to get out of every scrape. john woo can still direct action sequences and that’s where the strength of the film is. john woo still has some skill as a director – he just needs to get the right script and core cast. not very good, but it could have been worse.