A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Paycheck

Date Viewed: 1/2/04

Details:

Ben Affleck (Michael Jennings)

Aaron Eckhart (James Rethrick)

Uma Thurman (Rachel Porter)

Director: John Woo

Score: +

The Review: The science fiction -- which includes some advanced neurophysiology and some advanced optics, both substantially beyond the contemporary state of the art -- is a scaffold upon which a decent mystery thriller is constructed. This is derived from (yet) another Philip K. Dick short story -- the good news is that he was responsible for Minority Report and Blade Runner; the bad news was Impostor. There's even some commonality in concept for interactive computer interfaces, a direct manipulation interface shared with Minority Report, but whether the connection is in Dick or in imitation, is not clear.

Michael Jennings (Affleck) is that particular flavor of engineer who can dissect any electronic and software technology and re-engineer it to taste. It seems that his skill is particularly suited to Allcom, a vast and very private engineering firm with its fingers in a number of pies. Here's the first gimmick: to (allegedly) reduce Allcom's legal exposure in reverse engineering and patenting ("none dare call it theft") closely competitive technology, Jennings cloisters himself for a few months for each task, and upon completion undergoes a selective memory erasure back to the start of the project. Thus he cannot incriminate himself, although the biological (let alone social) effects of doing this repeatedly appear less than desirable. The benefit is a very large paycheck for the skill, but mostly as compensation for the isolation and risk. The movie is just beginning when Jennings agrees to enter into a unprecedented three year project, and emerges (immediately, to both his and our perspective) with a memory wipe -- but no paycheck. The mystery is what work he was doing, and the thriller is who's after him to prevent him from finding out. The second gimmick? -- the clues awaiting his decryption were provided as a message from his cloistered self while he was under isolation.

As befits a Woo film, from the outset it never ramps down and doesn't stint on the action. There's no remorse or second thoughts in any of the character's minds about the borderline legality of the work, and the moral paintbrush is applied with thick monochromatic strokes.

(4-Jan-04)

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