In the near future, a voracious, post-Obamacare corporation called The Union has developed synthetic prostheses for every conceivable body part. These expensive parts are sold to the sick (without a public option, apparently) by door-to-door insurance salesmen offering terms. But there is one horrible catch: should a recipient fail to keep up with his payments, the company’s Repo Men will (forcibly, bloodily) reclaim company property. Cue the scalpels. That’s the set up. And butched-up Jude Law plays the main dude, who’s forced to have a rethink (get a heart) the day his own is replaced. That’s the plot.
So Repo Men mostly feels like you need your brain replaced. Location wise, the movie’s set in a glimmering Tokyo-esque metropolis full of lit-up skyscrapers and a showroom-load of electronic billboards (actually Toronto), but it’s got all the connection of an establishing shot on the Action Channel. As Stephen Holden says in New York Times: “Otherwise, there are the abandoned warehouses, studio backlot suburbs, and dilapidated apartment complexes that action movies use because they’re light on the wallet and the imagination.”