Repossessed! *spoiler alert*

Repo Men (2010)
Director- Miguel Sapochnik
Starring- Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga

Remy (Law) and Jake (Whitaker) work for a company that manufactures replacement organs for transplant recipients.  Their job is to track down those who are over 90 days overdue on their payments, then take the organs back, leaving the the unfortunate recipient to die where they lay.

Remy and Jake love their jobs, and are very good at them, too.  Remy's wife, however, doesn't share his enthusiasm for his work and urges him to get transferred to a department that isn't quite so bloody, and that lets him spend more time with his family.  Remy cannot stay away from his job, though, and the wear on his family becomes so much that she eventually leaves him.

During a heart repossession, Remy suffers a serious shock from a bad defibrillator and must have his own heart replaced as a result.  His efforts to try to resume life "as usual" are hindered by the fact that he now feels empathy for those recipients he's repossessed from, and can no longer perform those duties.  He tries one of the "safer" departments like sales, but finds he cannot pressure people into buying new organs without being honest and warning them of what will happen should they be unable to pay.  He is soon fired, and cannot afford to pay for his own replacement.  Instead of submitting to his best friend and former coworker, Remy goes on the lam and searches for a place where he won't be found out.

He soon finds Beth (Braga), a woman who' also running away from repo men.  Beth's transplants seem to take up half of her body, all black market.  Together the two try to make their way out of the country to live peacefully.

This movie was a lot better than I had originally anticipated.  I figured it would be a goofy, dystopian future society with a lot of digital stuff being thrown in.  It was actually more realistic, closer to society of today, only with a few changes in business policy.  The gadgetry was a little high-tech (like the scanners that detected the transplant), but not over-the-top.

Acting was solid all around.  The ending started to get a little cheesy, but then decided to turn around and give you a serious mindwarp right in the last few minutes.

Rating:  3.5/5 Bonedaddies.

"Head" Case

The Head (1959)

Director- Victor Trivas

Starring- Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Michel Simon

Doctor Abel (Simon) discovers a serum to keep the head alive after the body dies, but finds he needs a heart transplant before being able to put it to use. His mad assistant, Dr. Ood (Frank) decapitates him when he learns the transplant isn't taking and reanimates the doctor's head in hopes that he can obtain the formula for the serum. He then lures a beautiful exotic dancer away from her unhappy life, kills her, and uses her body as Frankensteinien replacement for a hunchbacked woman who had been seeing Dr. Abel when he was alive.

Dr. Ood, infatuated with the woman, tries to rape her after being confronted with what he had done, is tracked by police, and jumps out a window.

The sets were designed by Herman Warm (who did the sets for Dr. Caligari), which explains the dark and forboding atmosphere of the movie (even in the doctor's office). The effort put into the story far surpasses the acting ability, but overall the movie wasn't half bad.

The "Serum Z" concept was pretty silly. It's understandable to want to make head reanimation explainable, but honestly Shelly explained it better in a 19th Century Victorian novel. They may have done better to keep with the "Frankenstein" concept.

Rating: 3.5/5 Bonedadies.