A guarantee: You will not watch a more disgusting, morally repellent, wretchedly conceived film in 2010 than Miguel Sapochnik’s “Repo Men.”Encased in a carapace of unnecessarily wanton violence is an idea capable of tackling contemporary political issues, such as escalating health care costs and big government alliance with big businesses, as well as philosophical intrigues of what it means to be human or the relationship between jobs and human dignity. The film instead adopts a scattershot approach to these matters. “Repo Men” is founded on an incomplete view of man, as evidenced in its critical posturing. It manages at the end to retrieve some modicum of human sympathy (or divine grace) — but by then, the audience has already passed out because of exhaustion.Jake (Forest Whitaker) and Remy (Jude Law) are the repo men — armed collecting agents working for a mysterious medical company, Union. Headed by the incomparably devious Frank (Liev Schreiber), Union makes artificial body organs for sale to patients on credit, and Jake and Remy are called in to repossess the rented property when clients are unable to make the payments.The film thrives on a childish fascination with violence bordering on the voyeuristic, a sadomasochistic urge reminiscent of the fetishistic sex scenes accompanying the car accidents in David Cronenberg’s “Crash.” Remy takes on all comers with a gun in one scene — when out of clips, he continues with a knife, a hacksaw and then a hammer in quick succession. Everything is photographed in stylish clarity, blood spurts and all. In another scene unsurpassed in flippant viciousness, Remy makes a surgical incision in a woman’s stomach, inserts his hand into her chest cavity and begins beeping her innards with a barcode scanner. The entire sequence is captured in seductive slo-mo in a white clinically sterile room while techno music plays as the soundtrack.Through the expression “A job is just a job” (used by both Jake and Remy), the audience is invited to see the debased form of human nature espoused by the filmmakers. In one sense it means one job is just as good as another — a bureaucrat is no different from a mason. In another sense, it means every avenue to make money is legitimate or, more accurately, there is no illegitimate way to fend for one’s living; the drug dealer is no different from the cop. “Repo Men” thereby denies a rational aspect to man, reducing him to an animal, to be whimsically tossed around in attempts to satisfy his appetites (Little wonder defaulters are hunted down like rabbits in numerous chase scenes).This supposition is noticed in the economic and political aspects of the film. Union needs to sell organs to remain profitable, and it needs to convince people that paying upward of $1 million is in their interests. Everyone who listens to their sales pitch acquiesces from an initial hesitation and agrees to the purchase. No one declines. Consider this: People concerned about government taxes can avoid it by keeping their income below the taxable limit. Others concerned with paying car insurance take the bus. Car accident victims refuse EMS transport to avoid paying fees, and yet no one offers the least resistance to Union. As Vizzini says, “Inconceivable.”Once reason has been withdrawn, all men can achieve equality by becoming debtors — the reason almost none of the victims are identified by name. Parallels to the current health care debate (or fiasco) cannot be avoided at this point.”Repo Men,” nonetheless, nails to a certain degree the necessary collusion that can exist between big businesses and the State. The Union agents intentionally kill the creditors by retrieving the organs. Yet no murders are investigated, meaning either the film is situated in an anarchic society, which is highly unlikely, or the State condones such practices by turning a blind eye. Anyone who has dealt with credit card companies will realize Union isn’t entirely a figment of the filmmaker’s imagination.It would be impossible to infer what goes on in the minds of the filmmakers. But their product, “Repo Men,” is a vulgar, repugnant film, certainly possessing some political and economic insights that are nonetheless not worth the visual assault and mental anguish gotten from watching it.Freke Ette is a political theory graduate student from Uyo, Nigeria. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_fette. – – – -Contact Freke Ette at [email protected]