Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 18 March 2010 — Page 21

The Muncie Times • March 18, 2010 • Page 21

Movie Profile: The Repo Men

In the futuristic actionthriller Repo Men, humans have extended and improved our lives through highly sophisticated and expensive artificial organs. The dark side of these medical breakthroughs is that if you don't pay your bill, The Union sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property.. .with no concern for your comfort or survival. JUDE LAW (Sherlock Holmes, Cold Mountain) plays Remy, one of the best organ repo men in the business. When he suffers a near-fatal injury on the job, he awakens to find himself fitted with the company's top-of-the-line heart replacement... as well as a hefty debt. But a side effect of the procedure is that his heart's no longer in the job. When he can’t make the payments, The Union sends its toughest enforcer, Remy's former partner Jake (Academy Award® winner FOREST WHITAKER of The Last King of Scotland, Vantage Point), to track him down. Now that the hunter has become the hunted, Remy joins Beth (ALICE BRAGA of I Am- Legend, Blindness), another debtor who teaches him how to vanish from the system. And as he and Jake embark on a chase across a landscape populated by maniacal friends and foes, one man will become a reluctant champion for thousands on the run. Oscar®-nominated performer Jude Law respond-

Actors Jude Law and Forest Whitaker star in the Repo Men

ed to the screenplay for Repo Men soon after his representative advised that he read it. Law met with Sapochnik at the very early stages of development. “I was given the script by an agent when it was at a very early stage,” says the actor. “Over that year, having met Miguel and loving the originality of the script, I was fortunate enough to be a part of the piece's evolution.” When the filmmakers landed Oscar® winner Forest Whitaker to portray the role of Remy's brutish partner and best childhood friend, Jake, they knew that they had scored. While shooting a film in Louisiana, Stuber heard that Whitaker was also filming nearby, and the producer asked to meet with the actor to discuss the project. When Whitaker returned to Los Angeles, he and Stuber met with Sapochnik, and Whitaker became sold on

joining the film. Whitaker explains his interest in the project: “There are a number of things about this film that appealed to me as an artist. Jake is extroverted and with an acidic wit, which is fun to play; he's also a physical character, and I really enjoy martial arts. But in the end, there is an underlying message about what happens when we don't take care of people and they need to take care of themselves.’’ Though Remy and Jake are very different men and certainly have individual styles of doing their jobs, there's a buddy dynamic between them that dates back to their childhood and time together in the service. But all bets are off when Remy goes on the run and Jake is assigned to track him down for a lucrative tyjoining Law and Whitaker for Repo Men

are LIEV SCHREIBER as The Union's manager and top closer, Frank; CARICE VAN HOUTEN as Remy's wife, Carol; and RZA as T-Bone, the musician whose encounter with Remy ends Remy's ability to do his job. Repo Men is based on the novel “The Repossession Mambo” by Eric Garcia. Universal Pictures pre-sents-in association with Relativity Media-A Stuber Pictures production: Jude Law, Forest Whitaker in Repo Men, starring Liev Schreiber, Alice Braga, Carice Van Houten. The music is by Marco Beltrami; the costume designer is Caroline Harris. The futuristic action-thriller's editor is Richard Francis-Bruce, ACE; the production designer is David Sandefur; and its director of photography is Enrique Chediak. The film's executive producers are Miguel Sapochnik, Jonathan

Mone, Mike Drake, Valerie Dean, Andrew Z. Davis. Repo Men is produced by Scott Stuber, and its screenplay is by Eric Garcia & Garrett Lerner. The film is directed by Miguel Sapochnik. © 2009 Universal Studios, www.repomenarecoming.com FOREST WHITAKER (Jake) is one of Hollywood's most accomplished actors, directors and producers who has showcased his talents in a multitude of demanding and diverse roles. After winning almost every critics' award in 2007, he received an Academy Award® for Best Actor, a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion PictureDrama, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor and a B AFTA for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. That same year, his independent film American Gun, in which he starred and produced, was nominated for a film Independent Spirit Award. Whitaker garnered more critical attention for his performance on FX's The Shield, opposite Michael Chiklis, and for his performance on ER, for which he garnered an Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. He was recently seen in the suspense thriller Vantage Point, opposite continued on page 22