Paycheck (2003) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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The film Ben Affleck said he took for the literal paycheck.

It’s another pseudo-time travel film starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman in an action-fueled, mystery/thriller. Paycheck posits the question, “how bad could viewing the future actually be?” It also delves into corporate greed, and the worthwhile-ness of losing various memories over one’s lifetime.

First Impressions

The trailer for this film introduces the concept of reverse-engineering a device in order to learn how it works. It then introduces Ben Affleck’s character who has been hired by a huge tech firm to reverse-engineer something, which takes him three years, and then has his memory wiped. He apparently is trying to remember what he did, which leads to all sorts of chases and shootouts as the bad guys come for him. John Woo directs based on a Philip K. Dick story. Is there something here, or was it just a Paycheck for the actors?

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck) is a reverse-engineer that is hired by technology companies to recreate (ie., steal) designs from their competitors. He works a two month contract after which he is paid by the company’s lawyer, Rita Dunne (Kathryn Morris), and has his memories erased by his friend Shorty (Paul Giamatti). He proceeds to catch up on the missing two months of his life, including watching Boston Red Sox games, when he is invited to a party by his old college friend Jimmy Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), the CEO and tech entrepreneur of Allcom. At the party Mike unsuccessfully hits on Dr. Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman).

Jimmy offers Mike a chance of a lifetime to work on a new project for him. All he can tell him at this time is that it involves optics, and that his payment will be an eight figure sum. The catch is that the project is two to three years of his time, which will be erased. Mike balks at the length of time he’ll have erased, claiming eight weeks is the maximum, but Jimmy has a new chemical technique that he promises will work. Mike shows up the next day at Allcom, surrenders his personal belongings to Wolfe (Colm Feore), the head of security, and is shown around–including re-meeting Rachel.

Three years later, Mike walks out of Allcom and into a law firm where he is given a parcel with twenty odd items rather than his paycheck of $92 million, which the lawyer claims he forfeited weeks ago. Before he can even make sense of the parcel he’s grabbed by the FBI and basically tortured for information about what Allcom is up to. Mike manages to escape using several of the items in his parcel and arranges to meet Shorty at Union Station. Men with guns come for them, including Wolfe, but using more items from his parcel, Mike manages to escape again. A matchbook in his possession gives him a clue to meet Rachel at a local restaurant.

Jimmy and Wolfe discover a secret message in Rachel’s apartment written prior to Mike finishing the project (but somehow unseen by Rachel until now) that allows them to put a woman claiming to be Rachel in place to stall Mike while a sniper kills him. Luckily the real Rachel shows up in time, saving Mike, and convincing him that she’s his real girlfriend. They escape the hitmen, security goons, and the FBI, after a motorcycle chase through a quarry. Mike now realizes that the project was a way to see the future, and the items were clues he left for himself to stop Allcom and destroy the machine.

FBI agents Dodge (Joe Morton) and Klein (Michael C. Hall) also realize what Mike is up to and follow him, getting a mole inside Allcom to assist him if needed. Mike and Rachel use a security badge and some other items to sneak back into the tech facility. Jimmy instructs Wolfe to allow them to break-in and then they’ll be able to kill them for trespassing. Mike needs to use the machine one more time before destroying it, and sees a version of the future where he is shot on a catwalk in the botanical section of Allcom, a vision that has been recurring to him.

He and Rachel rig a bullet onto a liquid nitrogen tank under the machine, which will go off when the cooling system cycles. Mike then tricks Rachel to exit through a door, while he goes to confront Jimmy on his own. The two men fight and Jimmy, getting the upper hand, drags him onto a catwalk where Rachel is brought in, captured. Suddenly, Mike’s watch alarm goes off as an FBI agent shoots past Mike, killing Jimmy, and the time viewing machine explodes killing Wolfe. Later, Mike and Rachel are working in a nursery owned by Shorty, when Rachel returns with her love bird cage. Mike recalls a fortune from his parcel, and looking under the cage liner finds a lottery ticket–with the winning numbers–good for $90 million.

“Seeing the future will destroy us. If you show someone their future, they have no future.” – Michael Jennings

History in the Making

Paycheck is now the second film in a row on Sci-Fi Saturdays that is almost a time travel film, but not really a time travel film. While last week’s Timeline actually dealt with the characters traveling into the past (via a wormhole rather than some technological time travel machine), Paycheck only allows the characters to view a different time, specifically their own future. It features a number of actors that have appeared in previous sci-fi films, a director of action films and an oft-lambasted sci-film, with the author of the source material being one of the highest regarded science-fiction authors of the 20th Century. However, all that experience and creativity only creates a moderately average film.

Paycheck was directed by Chinese director John Woo as a follow-up to Windtalkers, and Mission: Impossible II. His previous film to those was 1997s Face/Off, which is a sci-fi/action hybrid that people seem to either love or hate, due to its preposterous premise. In that regard, Paycheck is a little easier to swallow, and Ben Affleck is a better actor to follow as the amnesiatic everyman on the run for his life. Affleck’s previous two films were the low-rated Gigli and Daredevil, but we’re not here to talk about those. He is probably better remembered for his work on Good Will Hunting, any number of Kevin Smith films, or the sci-fi/adventure/disaster film Armageddon. His love interest, who is relegated to having little to do, other than flee with Affleck from the bad guys, is Uma Thurman–though she does get to bang bolts off a vent with a giant wrench. She is best remembered for Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, but was also in a well-regarded sci-fi film from 1997, Gattaca. Rounding out the main cast is Aaron Eckhart who is now best known for playing Harvey Dent in the Batman film, The Dark Knight. But he too has a sci-fi film in his recent past–but not one that is spoken kindly of–The Core. His character in the film goes from a jovial and good friend of Mike’s to one that would put a bullet in the man to save his company–which ends up being a lot of scene-chewing for Eckhart. Also quick shout-outs to Joe Morton, who played computer programmer Miles Dyson in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Kathryn Morris in her second Philip K. Dick adaptation in a row after Minority Report. They have limited supporting parts with Morton’s character being much like Tommy Lee Jones’ character in The Fugitive, a compassionate law-man.

Genre-fication

The reason many people flocked to this film to begin with, or may still seek it out, is probably due to the name of Philip K. Dick being attached to the story. Dick’s history with Hollywood started off hot but cooled over the following two decades. His film adaptations began most famously with Blade Runner, followed by Total Recall and Screamers in the 90s, as well as Minority Report in 2002. Three other adaptations of his would follow Paycheck ending with a remake of Total Recall in 2012–the last film adapted from his work to date.

His story that would be adapted into this film was first published as a novelette in the June 1953 issue of Imagination – Stories of Science-Fiction and Fantasy magazine. The film retains the bones of that short story, which features an engineer named Jennings working on a secret project for Rethrick, having his mind wiped, and ending up with a parcel with only half-a-dozen items that lead him back to the corporation on his time viewing machine. However the original story ends with Jennings blackmailing Rethrick into paying him to join the company as a partner.

And while Paycheck has the future-like devices for seeing the future and erasing one’s memories, it really owes a lot more to the suspense/mystery genre than science-fiction. The mysterious objects that Mike must find a use for provides curious audience members a chance to wonder how he will use them. His pursuit by the bad guys, with no real understanding of why he’s being pursued is similar to any number of Alfred Hitchcock pictures including The Wrong Man and more epically North by Northwest. Other elements include the woman masquerading as Mike’s girlfriend–which echoes Vertigo–and chases through crowded train stations also from
North by Northwest.

Societal Commentary

Thematically Paycheck has one strong message (aside from vetting your freelance jobs more carefully), and that has to do with memory. Memory, especially past memory, plays an important role in a number of Dick’s adaptations. Total Recall features a character that cannot remember his past, having false memories implanted and Blade Runner features the false memories implanted in the Replicants as a huge story point. Here, Mike’s job entails him trading his prodigious engineering skills for having weeks or months of his life erased from his mind. Mike only remembers the highlights of his life. Later Rachel argues with Mike that you can’t engineer your memories. She says that some of the best memories can come from accidents or mistakes. Everyone is the sum of their experiences, and removing the mundane to only focus on the extraordinary provides nothing to compare those memories to.

From a philosophical point, the film argues that seeing the future is akin to removing free will from that person. The future that Mike sees, represented by a series of newspaper headlines, shows a world that collapses into anarchy at the thought of a tech company having a machine that can see the future. Allcom becomes the focus of a global holocaust due to its pivotal role in having seen the future. The film also posits that the removal of the mystery of the future also removes the hope of people striving for something better. The machine predicts a war, which forces the humans to war in order to prevent it. A catch-22, and self-fulfilling prophecy all in one. Paycheck attempts, however clunkily, to make sure that audiences understand that knowing the future is not as wonderful as people believe it to be. Except that the whole premise of the film is about the future that Mike creates in order to save himself, including purchasing a winning lottery ticket.

The Science in The Fiction

Paycheck takes place between 2004 and 2007 according to some of the paychecks Mike collects. This near future is almost exactly like our own, except for three things: the holographic computer displays, the memory erasing technology, and the time viewing machine invented by Dekker. The technology of the machine as described in the film has to do with a lens that is so powerful one can see around the curvature of the universe. And in doing so, you would be able to see into the future, specifically your future. Just as depicted later when Wolfe uses the machine, briefly, he is only able to see his future, in that location. There’s no real explanation, or depiction, of what Mike was seeing in his future–on the bus, in the tunnels, or driving a motorcycle on the streets. As with Timeline, starting to ask questions about the technology, breaks down the magical qualities, and makes it appear only as a plot device.

The memory erasing technology is equally “techno-babble” both in the film and when analyzed later. The film opens with Shorty cooking the memories out of Mike with a computer device that looks a bit like a Playstation game, as he zaps the rogue brain cells. He warns the onlookers that if Mike’s temperature exceeds 43° Centigrade he becomes a vegetable. That’s 109.4° Fahrenheit which of course would make you a vegetable. It actually is a temperature that usually signifies death. Physicians warn about seeking treatment when a fever over 103° is reached. The ludicrous part of this sequence (as if we weren’t already there) is when an onlooker bumps the computer table (not the medical bed) and Mike’s temperature begins to fluctuate. Shorty yells at the man to be careful! Not sure how that happened, since the computer was not directly controlling Mike’s fever. Paycheck works better when it sticks to the mystery objects and interpersonal relationships, instead of any science related things.

The Final Frontier

The film depicts Mike sending himself twenty items that he needs to complete his plan for destroying the time viewing machine. Eagle-eyed viewers watching for the first time on video might pause the film in the hotel sequence and actually count the items seen (plus the ones used to date) and come up with only nineteen–knowing that there is at least one additional item that is not readily apparent. For your amusement, here’s the list of items and how they were used. While most are a single-use item, a couple of them actually serve multiple purposes.

First, the Watch (1) proves to the FBI interrogating Mike that he is the owner of the items, as it matches the tan lines on his wrist. The pack of Cigarettes (2) are smoked by Agent Dodge and accidentally set off the fire suppression system. Mike uses the Sunglasses (3) to be able to see through the halon gas. Pursued by Wolfe, Mike uses a Transit Pass (4) to board a bus, where a punk grabs the Diamond Ring (5) causing Mike to follow the young man off the bus and to the lawyers office–and the next step of his journey. Mike reviews the remaining items on the bed of the motel. While meeting Shorty, Mike surmises the items are meant to force him to pay attention to what past-Mike was trying to tell him. A Fortune (6) slip holds the winning Powerball numbers from the TV, proving his theory even further. When Wolfe and his goons attack Mike, he gives Shorty a Janitor Key (7) which allows his friend to escape through a locked door. Mike uses a can of Hairspray (8) and a Lighter (9) to burn the face of one of the goons. And finally in the subway tunnel, he uses a Paperclip (10) to short out a circuit board stopping a train inches from hitting him.

Next, the Matchbook (11) leads him to Café Michel where he’s supposed to meet Rachel. They escape from the sniper attack and into a BMW lot where he uses a Motorcycle Key (12) to start a previously purchased motorcycle. While recovering elsewhere Mike notices the Lens (13) leaning up against the Stamps (14) on the parcel, which reveals hidden future-newspaper headlines that convince them to destroy the machine. Sneaking into Allcom Mike trips the metal detectors with a tube of Ball Bearings (15) distracting the guards, while he and Rachel use the Allcom Security Pass (16) to enter the building. He disabes the card reader with an Allen Wrench (17) and replaces the button battery with a Silver Dollar (18). Having previously placed a chip on the machine’s circuit board to prevent its use, Mike uses a Crossword Puzzle (19) to lead him to the proper location of the malicious “bug.” His final item is a Bullet (20) which he zipties to a pneumatic actuator which will cause the bullet to fire when activated, puncturing an LN2 container and blowing up the machine. His Watch (1) alarm goes off warning him of the FBI agent firing the gun. And finally the actual Fortune (6) leads him to look under the bird cage liner where he finds a winning Lottery Ticket (21) which he bought using the numbers on the back of the Fortune.

The film more than triples the number of items Mike sends himself in the original story, and spends most of its time making the audience a participant in the discovery of what each one does. Unfortunately this appears to cover for the lean elements of actual plot that is put into the film, as Mike only needs to get back inside Allcom and destroy the computer system. He just takes the long way to get there. In the end, Paycheck is an amusing diversion that plays off Affleck’ star power, Woo’s stylistic approaches, and a mystery path that runs the characters in circles before finally allowing them to see their future. But it falls short of many other elements seen in better sci-fi films which would have taken this film to the next level.

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