Once upon a time, movies had villains that could act.  Once upon a time, movies had villains that were actually entertaining to watch.  Once upon a time, movies had villains that were not only believable, but who could steal a scene just as easily as the main characters could.  Now, instead of casting someone who can stand on equal footing with the stars of movies, we are getting second-rate actors who not only hurt the movie, but ruin any scene that they are in.  Paycheck is one of those action movies, where the main character is given a villain who wouldn't be able to pass bad checks, let alone get away with being one of the leads of a movie.  Aaron Eckhart is the unfortunate soul that we are forced to live with in this film, and unfortunately the 36-year old is being cast in more action roles after this film.


Paycheck stars Ben Affleck as Michael Jennings, as a reverse-engineer in the computer business.  What he is hired to do, is to take technologies that other companies have made, find out how they work, and make them better for the new company.  The deconstruction of the technologies, is obviously illegal, but he does it in order to bring in the money that he feels he deserves.  While it makes him look really cool at the beginning when he is doing it, I feel it took away from the character, because he was no longer an innocent by-stander, but someone who was willing to break the law for his own personal gain.  This was something I had to struggle to get past in the first part of the movie.  Working with him on all of these jobs, is a partner named "Shorty" who is played by Paul Giamatti.  Shorty's role is as a "doctor" who erases the memories that Jennings has of the jobs which he has just completed.  He has these memories erased because the companies that he works for want plausible deniability, and don't want Jennings to be able to tell the world that they have stolen ideas.


One of the flaws I have with the beginning premise, is that when the memories are erased, everyone can see them from the point-of-view of Jennings on a computer screen.  Now my question is, if Shorty is able to see all of them, then what is the point of clearing the memory of Jennings?  It would seem that Shorty would be just as big of a liability.  So, when he has his memories erased, Jennings no longer can remember anything for a certain period of time.  From the beginning of a job, until its completion, he now has a blank spot in his mind.  What this leaves him with, as he puts it, is just high-lights of his life in which he doesn't have to remember work, but rather just remembers everything he does outside of it.  Each time, the only thing that he has to show for a job is a high-end 6-figure check that he is given.  He makes a very good living doing what he is doing, but each time he has his memory cleared, it seems like he is losing a small part of himself.


Knowing of what he can do, a company offers Jennings an 8 figure salary in order for him to go into a project that will take 3 years of his life to complete.  It is a huge sacrifice, as he knows that nobody has even gone that long, and then had a "memory-wipe" of that magnitude.  The money is the winning factor though, as he realizes that if he does this job, he will be set-up for the rest of his life.  His friend urges him not to do it, but Jennings says that he wants to at least go see what it is all about.  Showing up, he comes across Rachel, a worker at the facility who is played by Uma Thurman.  Jennings had met her the prior day at a party, and was somewhat smitten by her from the start.  She ends up being the deciding factor of him taking the job, and he agrees to go through the process of setting up his brain to have a memory wipe.  In this case, they inject him with something that settles in his brain, and serves as a marker to let them know where to erase his memory back to.  We see him take the drug, and the movie flashes forward to the point at which his memory has been erased, leaving the 3 years that have passed gone from memory.  Those 3 years do not exist for the audience either, as the movie begins to settle into its plot.


Jennings remembers nothing about the past 3 years, and events start to unfold that lead him to believe that he must have been working on something of grave importance over that time span.  Even though he has had his memory erased, he does have 2 flashes that keep coming back to him.  The reason for this, as explained by Shorty, was that when the company did the memory "block", they did it in liquid form, which can always lead to mistakes taking place.  The former method that had been used was with electricity that basically zapped his memories out of existence.  The memory flash that Jennings keeps having that troubles him, is a scene of him getting shot and falling off of a platform.  One problem that I have with this scene, is that when we think back to our own memories, we don't put ourselves into them, but rather it is from our point of view, looking out at something else.  I had to think for a long time to figure out why he was able to see himself, and ended up just hurting my brain in the process.  So, with the thought of dieing now at the front of his mind while he does everything else, he thinks that he is somehow able to see what may happen to him in the future.


Soon, Government officials, and people who work for the "company", are chasing him around the city, as he tries to remember a reason why they would be doing this.  The only thing that he has to go off of is the 20 clues that he has left himself in personal belongings that were able to slip through security, because alone, each one of them is insignificant.  They include things like a matchbook, a stamp, a silver dollar, and a lighter just to name a few of them.  Before the movie is over though, you do find out what each of them meant, and the importance of having them all.  Affleck does a pretty good job playing the role of someone who has lost his memory.  Originally, when John Woo (The Director) cast this film, he wanted Matt Damon for the role, but Damon turned it down because of another movie that he had been in; The Bourne Identity .  Woo does a great job with the quick moving camera, and as always with a John Woo film, you have the required slow-motion scene take place.


As I said earlier, I was very disappointed with Aaron Eckhart being chosen to play in this movie, and he just about ruined it for me.  While he fails to give a believable performance, he also does not seem to be able to act.  In another role that suits her personality, Uma Thurman plays the object of Affleck's affection, and with her, you are never let down on an acting performance.  I thought it was a shame that she was not given more scenes in the movie, and that she was forced to spend screen-time with Eckhart as well.  The movie was slow at times, while it tried to develop a story-line that did not end up making a lot of sense if you thought too long about it.  Instead, to enjoy this movie, you have to sit back and enjoy the ride, and not think about it afterwards.  It is likeable in some instances, but at other parts of the movie, you end up rolling your eyes about what is taking place.  I do recommend that you see this movie, because there are some interesting topics that are talked about, but at the same time I don't think this is a movie you would want to buy.




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day