Release Date: December 25, 2003
Starring: Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman, Aaron Eckhart, Colm Feore, Paul Giamatti, Joe Morton
Directed by: John Woo
Written by: David Georgaris
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (intense action violence, brief language)
Author Philip K. Dick has been the inspiration behind some of the most intriguing films of the science fiction genre, like Minority Report and Blade Runner, but John Woo’s Paycheck is not one of them. It belongs on the longer list of mediocre and half-hearted sci-fi action flicks that introduce innovative ideas, charge head-first into the creative possibilities, and then stop short when their potential is highest. This Ben Affleck actioner, which contains more generic plot elements than it does imaginative perks, is only mildly entertaining as it then cheapens Dick’s concept with dull characters and pointless action melodrama.
The title Paycheck refers to what Michael Jennings (Affleck) is expecting to find after he completes a three-year assignment for a futuristic technology corporation called Allcom (of which he has no memory -- his brain gets erased when it’s all over). But instead of the promised $90 million sum, he finds that he voluntarily forfeited the money before his memory was wiped and left himself only an envelope containing twenty innocuous and seemingly random items. It turns out that these items are important to his survival, especially now that Allcom, headed by a greedy man named Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), and the government are after him. He uses the envelope and one of his only allies, a former flame and coworker named Rachel (Uma Thurman), to escape danger and learn what he did over the last three years.
The envelope of twenty items is actually the most ingenious thing about the Dean Georgaris (Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) screenplay. These objects -- which include a diamond ring, a lens, a bus pass, a fortune cookie message, a key, a security pass, and infrared sunglasses -- each serve a purpose throughout the plot, and it makes Affleck’s character like a futuristic MacGyver, a guy who uses his practical knowledge and foresight to cleverly free himself from tight spots. It’s a bit too far-fetched for the audience to believe the character is so quick-witted that he can assume something like a random key will open the back door of a train station utility closet, but such things are part of the fun of movies, and for this we can suspend our disbelief. After all, the guy has had his head tampered with in the future, so maybe those crazy scientists made him extra intelligent.
The rest of Paycheck, unfortunately, is not as easy to forgive. Uma Thurman’s character, for example, is an underused piece of excess baggage for our hero, who doesn’t remember her in the first place. (She does have one shining moment, however, that involes a mechanical arm during a fight sequence.) Her function in the story is as the romantic interest, which proves to be unnecessary since her bigger purpose -- Affleck’s partner in action -- could have been filled by the funnier and even more unseen sidekick played by Paul Giamatti. True, Thurman has stunning looks and great athletic ability (see Kill Bill), but her inclusion in the film is merely a fulfillment of the action movie formula. It’s as if she was part of the filmmakers’ checklist, not an important player in the bigger scheme of things.
Furthermore, the villains chasing Affleck are standard issue goons in suits who, we eventually learn, are acting on the all-too-common incentives of extreme wealth and world domination. Both Aaron Eckhart and Colm Feore, the evil minds behind the operations at Allcom, are the definition of generic movie villains, delivering those boring and familiar lines about how the hero should be killed and complaining when he keeps succeeding. They have very little personality and do nothing but give Affleck a chance to use his envelope of tricks.
Director Woo himself has very few tricks. He has one or two moderately impressive sequences (such as the subway tunnel chase), but others (like the motorcycle pursuit) are disappointing since they, too, are accomplished with the same uninspired technique as the rest of the movie. Few of Woo’s stylistic signatures are present in Paycheck until the very end, when he must have either run out of ideas or didn’t care enough to think of something original -- the final confrontation between Affleck and Eckhart is exactly like the one between Nicolas Cage and John Travolta in Face/Off, complete with the point-blank Mexican standoff, the character reflections in glass, and even a dove entering the frame in slow motion.
The philosophical claim of Paycheck, the only element of Philip K. Dick’s material to show through in the film, is that predicting the future only results in inevitable self-fulfillment of that prediction. For example, should you try to prevent a war that’s going to happen, you’re doomed to end up starting that same war anyway. This is something that’s certainly interesting to think about, but it’s only touched upon briefly with the same lukewarm effort as the rest of the film. The bottom line is that there’s very little payoff in John Woo’s Paycheck.
-- Andy Zientek (zfilm@earthlink.net)