Paycheck, from a story by Philip K. Dick (which in Dreamworks and Paramounts' hands gets PG-13 treatment like Minority Report), is a story that is told from start to finish, however, the structure is scrambled for the hero. Ben Affleck plays Michael Jennings, a man who gets paid a lot to "reverse-engineer" certain companies. He gets asked by Aaron Eckhart's character James Rethrick to go under a new kind of experiment not under the supervision of the government. He drifts off into sleep, and when he awakes it's three years later and everything that happened after he really became awake is wiped from his memory. When Jennings finds out he was supposed to have waken up - and gained a love in his life via biologist Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman) - things get complicated. There isn't much else to expound story-wise, except that Dick's running theme of a man being chased by dangerous people is kept strong here as in Minority Report and Total Recall.
The turns the story takes aren't terribly complicated, though that is a minor problem for Paycheck. It's nothing that a viewer can really sink teeth into like MR, TR, and Blade Runner, and nearly all of the films action scenes and main story points are left on the shoulders of Affleck. Now, Affleck can show his stuff here and there (it's usually under a great script or when he gets only a few scenes to show his chops like in Boiler Room) yet under such dialog it's not a good place for him. He's done starring vehicles before, and I'm really seeing a pattern through them that's starting to bug me- in a lot of these big-money, Hollywood-ish high-octane thrillers there isn't much for Affleck to do except acting like himself. Woo tries to garner a performance that resembles a Hitchcock-ian lead like Grant or something (the Master was an influence on Woo to make this picture), and I just didn't see it working. Luckily, a supporting role for the lovely Uma Thurman as the romantic interest who can kick a** isn't squandered - her work here is solid enough to hold up enough scenes.
And then there's John Woo, who has come a ways since his Hong Kong shoot-em up thrillers. I would most likely pick The Killer, or even MI:2, before this one on a Woo best-of list. Never-the-less, it's hard for me to complain about his style with the material, and the general look of the film he contributes. You can tell he's working with a lot more money than his Hong Kong days, which is perhaps bitter-sweet for his hardcore fans of his days with Chow-Yun Fat. Is it a bad action film he's directed? Not necessarily- it may depend on how much a viewer can take of the acting and story vs. Woo's techniques to pull it off. With a dependable crew to work with, like DPs Jeffrey Kimball & Larry Blanford and editors Christopher Rouse & Kevin Stitt (not to mention the designers and such), there's some stuff to look for here in regard to the craft. There's one sequence- a chase on a motorcycle with Affleck and Thurman- that feels like it could be better on a repeat viewing.
Bottom line, there isn't a whole lot Woo can show in true Hong-Kong grit, and the PG-13 rating constricts him in up to a point. But as I said, (maybe more-so in the quieter scenes) at the least Woo keeps a viewer awake like a pro. He could be given a script written by a twelve-year old and make it sort of entertaining, and here isn't an exception. B-
The turns the story takes aren't terribly complicated, though that is a minor problem for Paycheck. It's nothing that a viewer can really sink teeth into like MR, TR, and Blade Runner, and nearly all of the films action scenes and main story points are left on the shoulders of Affleck. Now, Affleck can show his stuff here and there (it's usually under a great script or when he gets only a few scenes to show his chops like in Boiler Room) yet under such dialog it's not a good place for him. He's done starring vehicles before, and I'm really seeing a pattern through them that's starting to bug me- in a lot of these big-money, Hollywood-ish high-octane thrillers there isn't much for Affleck to do except acting like himself. Woo tries to garner a performance that resembles a Hitchcock-ian lead like Grant or something (the Master was an influence on Woo to make this picture), and I just didn't see it working. Luckily, a supporting role for the lovely Uma Thurman as the romantic interest who can kick a** isn't squandered - her work here is solid enough to hold up enough scenes.
And then there's John Woo, who has come a ways since his Hong Kong shoot-em up thrillers. I would most likely pick The Killer, or even MI:2, before this one on a Woo best-of list. Never-the-less, it's hard for me to complain about his style with the material, and the general look of the film he contributes. You can tell he's working with a lot more money than his Hong Kong days, which is perhaps bitter-sweet for his hardcore fans of his days with Chow-Yun Fat. Is it a bad action film he's directed? Not necessarily- it may depend on how much a viewer can take of the acting and story vs. Woo's techniques to pull it off. With a dependable crew to work with, like DPs Jeffrey Kimball & Larry Blanford and editors Christopher Rouse & Kevin Stitt (not to mention the designers and such), there's some stuff to look for here in regard to the craft. There's one sequence- a chase on a motorcycle with Affleck and Thurman- that feels like it could be better on a repeat viewing.
Bottom line, there isn't a whole lot Woo can show in true Hong-Kong grit, and the PG-13 rating constricts him in up to a point. But as I said, (maybe more-so in the quieter scenes) at the least Woo keeps a viewer awake like a pro. He could be given a script written by a twelve-year old and make it sort of entertaining, and here isn't an exception. B-