“Futuristic Thriller With a Twist”

Part spy thriller, part sci-fi movie, “Paycheck” is one hundred percent action flick that starts out at a fevered pitch and never slows down. Based on a short story by Phillip K. Dick (Blade Runner), “Paycheck” introduces an inventive, yet disturbing, vision of the future; a “what if” scenario. What if highly trained computer experts and bio-engineers were implanted with a marker at the beginning of a top-secret project and, when the job was completed, their memories were wiped all the way back to the point of marker insertion? What if you lost three years of your life (memories), but received remuneration for your services somewhere in the ballpark of eight figures? But what if the project you worked on was illegal, and the F.B.I. shows up and you have no memory of what you’ve been doing for the last three years?

Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck) is on the run from his former employer and the feds., and all he has to aid him in his search for answers to the past is a manila envelope filled with a dozen ordinary items that he had the foresight to send himself before the memory wipe. A latent memory of a significant other leads Michael to Rachel (Uma Thurman), the one person who can help him get back into the lab and destroy the machine that he built…a device that will lead to great catastrophe in the future.

Oversimplified? Far-fetched? A bit confusing? You bet! But if “Paycheck” has any redeeming quality, it’s that it doesn’t linger in one place too long. John Woo (Mission Impossible 2) does a good job of building intensity and sprinkling in action sequences at appropriate times until the explosion-filled climax.

Ben Affleck has tried his hand at being the lead in a thriller before (The Sum of All Fears), but his low-key—almost passionless—portrayals will prevent him from becoming an action star for the foreseeable future. Uma Thurman, a fairly well respected actress in drama, comedy and action circles adds very little to the movie—her vanilla performance will be forgotten shortly after the movie vacates theaters.

Even with mediocre elements, “Paycheck” somehow, inexplicably, manages to become more than the sum of its parts. This is, undoubtedly, due in large part to the genius of the source material the movie draws upon, proving once again that a slightly above average story can bail out average performances. “Paycheck” is a good popcorn movie that works great after you’ve suspended your disbelief, and works even better when you’ve only paid the matinee price.

Rating: 2 1/2

Tags: Action, Sci-fi, Thriller