Major spoiler warning alert!
This past weekend, Miguel Sapochnik’s directorial debut, the sci-fi action-thriller Repo Men, starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, opened after many delays, and let’s just say we were somewhat disappointed with how few people decided to give it a chance. That said, the 825,000 or so people who saw the movie will either have been puzzled by the movie’s ending or surprised that they could get away with something so unconventional in a studio film. If you haven’t seen the movie, then PLEASE don’t read on…but since it’s still playing in theaters, you can always go catch it and then come back and read this later.
So here’s your last chance to turn back before we get to the SPOILER!
The movie seemingly has a happy ending where the main characters are all lounging on the beach, happy to have survived the experience of going up against The Union and winning, then in a sudden twist, we discover that it’s all in Remy’s mind. That’s right. Sapochnik went for what we like to refer to as the “Brazil ending” where everything seems to be happy and wonderful…and then the rug is pulled out from under your feet. It’s not exactly a popular way to go, which is why so few movies have done it, and in fact, Terry Gilliam had a LOT of problems getting that ending past the studio when he made Brazil.
A few weeks ago at a press conference with Sapochnik, we decided to ask him about the ending and whether he had any problems getting the studio to agree to take such an unconventional approach. This is what he told us:
“The ending came about because originally in the script, the ending was everybody on the beach happy as Larry, and for me, that didn’t cut it. As I said, I’d been influenced by things like ‘Brazil,’ hugely, and I realized that we’re making a studio movie. I mean, we knew that we were making a movie that would require a fair bit of funding, so you have to give the audience what they want even if they don’t really want that, but the thing is you give it to them not in the way that they’re expecting, so it seemed important to give the audience an ending where the hero wins, but the idea that he wins in his own mind is not necessarily in the reality that the story exists in. I actually think it’s a happy ending, personally, because he’s a lot happier there than he would be living with a psycho best mate and an almost-dead junkie girlfriend. It’s like he’s in a good place, but yeah, there was a lot of resistance, I think simply because people would come to the screenings and they would walk out and it would split the audiences, they’d be very polarized. That would make the love-it-hate-it situation, it really brought it to the surface, and I spent a lot of time saying, ‘It’s alright if we lose half the audience as long as we gain half the audience.'”
If you happened to see the movie, we’d love to hear what you thought in the comments below. If you chose to ignore our warnings and read the above anyway without seeing the movie, then why not make an effort and try to get out to see it sometime this week? Repo Men is the kind of daring and unconventional filmmaking and sci-fi storytelling we don’t normally see from a major studio, and people who love dark sci-fi movies should try their best to support that.
Source: Edward Douglas
