A Brief Foreword

I am often told I "over-think" things. Which is both a blessing and a curse in the Computer Science realm. In celebration of this talent, I am starting a new mini-series: Over-Analysis, in which I will dutifully over think, over analyze, and generally tear apart movies, blogs, code, shows, whatever.

*Spoiler Alert, if you have not seen this movie and don't want to know ahead of time, stop reading here*


Now, without any further ado:

Over-Analysis Episode 1: Repo Men

As I sat in the theater yesterday, my "gift" came into full force. The movie concluded and the groans from the audience seemed indicative of shared sense of WTF at the movie ending. However, my gripes aren't with the excellent twist at the end (it was very well done, but I'll get to that later), but the lack of detail which required an enormous suspension of disbelief throughout the film.

1. What time and place are we in?

In a route often traveled, we appear to be in the near future where the United States and China have come to some sort of accord or one has over taken/assimilated the other into their culture. Very-Firefly/Serenity like in presentation, we are left to wonder what exactly is going on. The lack of a date/time group is directly correlated to points two and three.

2. Where are any forms of organized government?

Seriously, where are they? The Union is portrayed as a mega corporation only. You don't see a single police car in the entire movie. The city is well too organized to not have some form (even informal) government. Again, we are left to draw our own conclusions.

3. Why is there a massive Chernobyl ghetto right outside the city?

Was there a war? Nuclear holocaust? Just fell into disrepair due to a lack of government/funding/etc...? It appears that this is a "hideout" for people who are late on their organ payments. BUT, no infrastructure is set up on their part, nor do these "refugees" appear to band together to protect themselves, but I get ahead of myself.

4. Why is there no "resistance"?

Every man for himself? Why are the people late on their bills not organizing together? Forming some sort of impenetrable base? What do they have to lose? They are already living in the torn down ghetto area. If you've ever seen Equilibrium, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Where is the resistance!? If a dude walked into your home at night and said he was going to cut out your [insert organ here], then why wouldn't you shoot him? There's no apparent legal system to try you.

5. Where are all the guns?

For the first half of the movie, all you see are stun guns/tazers and larger shotguns versions of the same thing. Why stun them? If most are going to die anyway, why not just kill them? This leads the audience to believe that there, in fact, no conventional ballistic weapons, which is shot to death [haha] in the "2nd half". (But this prompts more questions once you realize what the second half really is, but more on this later).

6. What sort of supply is there on artificial organs?

Assuming that the only limiter is the amount of natural resources required to make new artificial organs, why is The Union killing people to retrieve them? Wouldn't it make more economic sense to have them continue paying as long as possible and then retrieve it when they finally die? Especially when the "boss" at the local Union chapter makes the comment that people paying in full at the time of receiving the organ is "killing their profit margin/business" (not entire sure which word he used). The point being, they make more money on the interest rates rather then the outright sale of their product.

7. Do they reuse collected organs?

This is never really explained. If they do, is this indicative of a limited supply? Is the supply limited natural or by technology or is it artificially imposed by The Union itself to raise prices? (Supply and Demand at its finest). The audience is again left to their own conclusions.

8. What is the message of the movie supposed to be?

This is my biggest issue with the movie so far. What exactly is it trying to say?



9. Were they manufacturing or repairing organs at corporate HQ?

Jude Law gets into a room, which basically looks like a plant where electronics are manufactured (think Intel), but it is never explained if they are making more or repairing collected ones for reuse. At one point, one guy in a white suit gets up and runs away frightened, but we never see him again...what was that about? Did he have an overdue organ? If so, why the hell was he working "in the lair of the beast"? The guards at Corporate have "real" guns and are not hesitant to shoot their own employees to try to get the protagonist. That doesn't make sense either. Aren't these highly skilled technicians who are working on your incredibly expensive products?

10. The Airport

This is in direct correlation to number two, since there are Union men at the airport scanning for organs. This would indicate that The Union is more then a mega corporation, but it is never explained! It also appears that "airport security" are a branch or are under direct control of The Union.

11. The Media

As soon as the first person got gutted, wouldn't this be all over the news? With the indication that it is only America involved in this quagmire, wouldn't the rest of the world be interested in what is going on in the supposed super power? Does The Union control the media? It's never explained!

12. Only one centralized storage unit?

This seems to be an IT failure on the part of the Union. If they can "clear" themselves from this one location, they're home free? There's no backup? No redundant disk array? Ugh. This makes believing in their apparent omnipotence difficult. Plus (and maybe I missed a line of dialogue), I thought they [Law and his girlfriend] went with the intention of destroying the whole unit, but didn't bring any explosives. Which is why I thought it was weird when they needed to scan everything, as opposed to one, drop some ordinance, and run like hell.

13. The 2nd Half is a "Dream" sequence

The "neural net" is alluded to throughout the movie and as we think the movie is ending with the protagonist relaxing on a beach far away from the problems of the world, we get a "glitch" and realize that everything after he was hit in the head by Forrest Whitiker's character has been "in his head". Now, don't get me wrong, great twist! But all this does is make us question all of those events. Whitiker says he switched the leads on the defibrillator so that his buddy would work with him forever, but ultimately leads to his demise...but they don't consider Law's character dead, even though he has no knoweldge of the real world/events. He's living in a fairy tale land. Severe head trauma and now he's "gone". How is he supposed to pay for all this? It is hinted that Whitiker is going to cut up Law's girlfriend to pay for all of it, but we aren't given concrete evidence to corroborate the story. We are again left to our own conclusions.

Since everything from that point wasn't real, does that mean there are in fact no conventional ballistic weapons? Why? What else isn't real? Is this even relevant?

Conclusion

This wasn't a bad movie, I rather enjoyed it. Aside from the plot holes that you could throw a cat through, it's a decent Dystopian thriller. The performances are excellent and some of the action scenes in the 2nd half are just, well, balls to the walls awesome.



Repo Men you have been over analyzed.