Paycheck

Not sure how I missed this one as it was based on a Philip K. Dick short story but I stumbled across it by accident late last night on SPACE. Poor Ben Affleck sure get's the piss taken out of him by the critics and public both and I've never quite understood why. He's pleasant enough to look at, his acting skills are more than OK and he's great in the action roles. Here he plays a reverse engineer who figures out trade secrets for the competition and then has his memory erased so as not to divulge what he's done. He's set up by a nasty dude and then only has an envelope filled with what appears to be random articles in which to figure out what has happened to him. Yes, we've seen all this before, especially in MEMENTO and the film certainly borrows heavily from MINORITY REPORT in look and feel. So what, it's a fun and though provoking ride and director John Woo as always throws in some fabulous chase scenes to spice things up. Uma Thurman is somewhat wasted here and Colm Feore looks as though he just walked straight off of the set of yet another film where he plays a cold hearted henchman. My biggest complaint here is with Paul Giamatti who once again comes off as an anooying twit. Why can't a Hollywood production ever just sit back and dare to take itself seriously without throwing in some comic relief sidekick? Take the whole thing with a grain of salt and it will more than entertain you.