Paycheck

2003 "The future depends on a past he was paid to forget."
6.3| 1h59m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 25 December 2003 Released
Producted By: Paramount
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Michael Jennings is a genius who's hired – and paid handsomely – by high-tech firms to work on highly sensitive projects, after which his short-term memory is erased so he's incapable of breaching security. But at the end of a three-year job, he's told he isn't getting a paycheck and instead receives a mysterious envelope. In it are clues he must piece together to find out why he wasn't paid – and why he's now in hot water.

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Director

John Woo

Production Companies

Paramount

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Paycheck Audience Reviews

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped
Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
carbuff Has the feeling initially that it's going to be an intelligent science fiction movie but slowly and steadily deteriorates into just another action movie. The acting is pretty wooden throughout, but you start by thinking that the intellectual workout is going to make up for the lack of emotional connection. Also the physics that this movie is built around is pretty ridiculous, and claiming that Einstein allowed for seeing into the future isn't really correct as far as I know--he famously demonstrated differential aging when traveling at different relative velocities, and, I suppose, the wormhole thing in theory allows for taking short-cuts between different areas of space-time, but nothing like a crystal ball (to my knowledge). As in all time travel movies, you can't really logically make the plot work if you think about it too much (which is the same problem most physicists have). Aaron Eckhart is reliably disappointing. He actually seems like a decently talented actor, but he pretty much only shows up in junk. He desperately needs some better guidance in choosing scripts, unless the only thing he's after is a big paycheck (get it?), in which case I'm sure he's doing fine. So if you're looking for some challenging Philip K. Dick stuff or something like that, pass on this. "Blade Runner", this isn't. (Not even close to "Minority Report" for that matter.) On the other hand, if you're just looking to kill some time with chases and explosions leading up to the obligatory predictable ending, this might work.
daniel-poirier-570-557312 What a fabulously stupid movie! I can't believe all the positive reviews issued previously by others (they must have been from 13-year-olds, or something).The storyline is lame and filled with stunningly impossible coincidences and the hero reaches conclusions that defy logic. The entire premise is just a pretext for Woo's usual abuse of explosions and flames.I'm shocked that the director (John Woo) could make even relatively good actors (Uma Thurman) appear to be one-dimensional and uninspired. Of course, the lame actors (Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart) are, well, lame... but I didn't expect much more from them - never seen them in any movie where the characters actually have some kind of depth to them.The movie isn't even bad enough to make it fun as only really bad movies can be (i.e. Attack of the killer tomatoes)...In short, rent it if you have $3 to waste, and even then, you may be upset about the waste of time.
Satyasheel Chaudhari Ben Affleck features as Michael Jennings and acts as an engineer. He agrees to get his memory erased as a part of the contract. He is shown to be a genius and outsmarts the rest of the people. In one of the assignments, he finds out that he himself forfeited his amount and sent himself a mail containing everyday items. The movie starts with good hope that something interesting will show up but after the half time, the story kinda of becomes obvious. Jennings actually had designed a machine that could see the future and he has sent himself some items that would help him escape his fate. The only suspense in the movie till the end is the fact if Michael Jennings would be able to change his future or not which he does eventually. I feel this movie is underrated on IMDb and could receive much higher rating, so rating this as 8.
SnoopyStyle In the near future, Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck) is a brilliant engineer who is a hired gun reverse engineering technology for a price. After his work is done, his memory is erased by Shorty (Paul Giamatti). His former schoolmate billionaire James Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart) offers him a big job that would last 2 or 3 years, but the longest memory wipe ever is no more than 8 weeks. John Wolfe (Colm Feore) is his henchman and Dr. Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman) works at his lab. When he comes out of his memory erasing, he finds $92M in his account. He goes to settle his account, but he finds that his personal items have been replaced and his shares have been forfeited four weeks ago. The FBI arrests him for treason and murder. They want him to implicate Rethrick since only his name is on the new patents but they don't have any memories to extract. He escapes and tries to find what happened in the lost 3 years.The sets don't look good enough especially that lab. The acting especially Affleck isn't good enough. His character is not particularly likable. He's a douche and I don't see the point of rooting for him. When Wolfe injects the marker, it's the perfect time to jump forward in time but the movie goes on for awhile despite the logic. The interrogation is laughable with the rotating chair and the escape is almost as bad. Overall, I like the ideas in the story which I attribute mostly to Philip K. Dick. John Woo isn't able to bring it to life. It feels a little like Face/Off but that movie reveled in its campiness. This one is suppose to be serious.