2003 · action · adventure · mystery
Paycheck
Directed by John Woo1h 59m2003
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.
Our read: Paycheck (2003) reads as a heavy, breathless, inventive action · adventure · mystery entry — extreme in intensity, epic-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.
Heavy, breathless, extreme action / adventure, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, epic, measured.
- heavy
- kinetic
- extreme
- inventive
- twisty
- epic-stakes
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How Paycheck feels to watch.
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What watching it is actually like.
“You want a clever amnesia puzzle wrapped in John Woo sci-fi action.”
Skip it tonight — You hate convoluted techno-thrillers or need character-driven drama tonight.
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