‘Repo Men’ – All gimmick, no payoff

Great science fiction films typically start with a gimmick, a concept that could only happen in an alternate reality.

The replicants in “Blade Runner.” The prawn-like immigrants invading South Africa in “District 9.”

“Repo Men” boasts such a hook, and then some.

We’ll forgive the fact that it’s recycling a key theme from “Repo!: The Genetic Opera.”

Imagine a future in which artificial organs can take the place of a failing liver, heart or kidney.

Of course, there’s a price to progress – there always is. If you can’t pay for your new organ they’ll repossess it right out of your body.

But “Repo Men” does virtually nothing with its can’t-miss premise – unless you consider unrelenting gore and utterly irredeemable characters a savings grace.

Jude Law and Forest Whitaker co-star as the titular “Repo Men,” longtime pals whose day job entails retrieving artificial organs of patients who can’t keep up with their payment plan.

That means surprising them on the street, at work or at home and slicing and dicing their quivering bodies in order to retrieve the merchandise.

Remy (Law, buffer but still a lithe presence) loves his work, which is odd since he’s essentially killing people for a paycheck.

Right away we find it all but impossible to relate to Remy, even if he gets his bromance on with Jake (Whitaker), his partner in killing.

They slice and dice sans remorse, and we’re supposed to feel badly when Remy’s distant wife threatens to leave him because his gig isn’t 9-to-5 enough for family life.

Poor baby.

Remy decides to work on the sales side of artificial organs to appease her, but a work accident sends him to the hospital.

He wakes up with a new, artificial heart, courtesy of his own company. He also has a fresh outlook on his livelihood along with a hefty new payment plan.

“Repo Men’s” social commentary starts and ends with the organs. Sure, we get the greedy capitalistic company which doesn’t give a darn about slaughtering patients who can’t pony up.

Audiences likely won’t blink an eye at such a corporate slam at this point.

The film lacks characters to rally around and can’t deliver a second layer of social commentary. The sharply realized cityscapes are a wonder to behold, but the action soon focuses on the characters and storyline, a decided disadvantage here.

“Repo Men” doesn’t make a lick of sense, even by sci-fi standards, and it ends with a by-now familiar twist ending.

The finale feels more coherent than “Shutter Island’s” gotcha moment. It still can’t cover up the film’s inability to carry though on its bold science fiction premise.

(Photo: “Repo Men” casts Jude Law and Forest Whitaker as men who rip out artificial organs from patients who can’t pay their medical bills/Universal Pictures)

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