Though its influences are myriad, REPO MEN is principally a sci-fi action flick in the darkly comedic and unrepentantly gory mold of Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP/TOTAL RECALL duo. Set in the near-enough future, where humans are encouraged to frivolously install crushingly expensive artificial organs, the film follows two reclamation specialists, Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker), charged with hunting down customers who've fallen past due on their liver/kidney/lung/etc. payments, and extracting their snazzy new organs like they're towing a Lexus.
REPO MEN is the debut feature of Miguel Sapochnik, an undeniably gifted commercial/music video stylist who drew Hollywood's attention in the early 2000s with his sci-fi short "The Dreamer". After landing a number of development deals with different studios, Sapochnik finally found his way onto what was then titled THE REPOSSESSION MAMBO, at which point he began reworking the screenplay with writers Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner. The key to getting the film into production - aside from hitting the talent trifecta of Law, Whitaker and Liev Schreiber - was finding a way to make the morally repugnant Remy, who kills financially vulnerable people for a living, somewhat likable without diluting the script's cynical sense of humor. Somehow, Sapochnik and his writers emerged from the ever-invasive studio development process with a relatable fascist - and, as a result, one of the most mean-spirited mainstream movies in recent memory.
REPO MEN may be a nasty piece of work, but Sapochnik never dwells on the nihilism, nor does he delve too deeply into the ethical quandaries posed by Garcia's and Lerner's screenplay. This is mostly just a rowdy action film - with a couple of major narrative twists - that wants nothing more than to give audiences a brutally memorable night out at the movies.
In the below interview, Sapochnik talks about how he a) kept sane on his first studio picture, b) established the tone of the film, and c) made me happy by working in a classic song by the criminally unsung soul singer William Bell.
Mr. Beaks: It's always interesting when you watch someone's first feature, and you can tell they've just been dying to make a movie. That's what I got from REPO MEN. When you have it all bottled up like that, and you finally get to let loose, how do you control yourself?
Miguel Sapochnik: (Laughs) Well, as you can probably tell from the film, you don't. I probably made a thousand movies in my head before I came to make this one for real. I think the material was extremely ambitious and complicated, and if I'd been given a choice, I don't necessarily know if it would've been my first film. You try and approach [directing] in the same problem-solving way you approach everything in your life: don't get carried away with the film; don't think for one minute that what you're doing is some life-changing important piece; don't take yourself too seriously; try to enjoy each day as it comes; preferably don't die on the job; and make it through without getting fired. That was the general rule. But the only way that that was facilitated was by the people who were around me - and they were around me because they got on board with the whole idea, and they liked and believed in the project. I think that fundamentally is what moved this out of being just a script and into being a full-fledged movie.
Beaks: It sounds like your guidelines boil down to "Don't behave like Sam Peckinpah".
Sapochnik: I don't think on your first film that that's a good idea, no. But I think maybe on your third film you can behave like Vincent Gallo and do whatever you want. Your first movie, however, is just keeping your head down and making sure that the work shows that you're paying attention.
Beaks: What were you looking for in your first film? Were you chasing a certain genre or a particular type of story?
Sapochnik: Not at all. I was fascinated by this subject matter because I made a science-fiction short film called "The Dreamer", and I was very aware when we were making it that it would be a calling card. And if you making a science-fiction short movie, you can't then go and say you want to go and make a romantic comedy and expect people to take you seriously. You have to follow through with that genre. And I was aware of the fact that, as with many directors, horror and sci-fi was a good way to get your foot in the door. The idea that we would actually make the movie, for the first couple of years, was sort of left in fantasy land. I wasn't sure that one could ever make a movie like this because it's so much about tone. Hitting tone is not a committee process; it requires you to be quite selfish about the decisions you make. I had a very interesting conversation with Forest and Jude the first night we were together; we were sitting around talking and discussing the characters, and Forest turns to me and says, "So how do you want us to play this? Do you want us to play it broad? Do you want it to be slapstick?" I had never thought before that they could play it a certain way, and it would affect the film and the material - and what the limitations of the material were. I really had to think about that. I was slightly nervous. I was like, "Shit! This guy just won an Oscar, and he's asking me this question that... I didn't even consider there was such a question!" So I said, "Listen, you guys just play it straight. I'll do the broad." And I'm glad I did, because I think what that did was give me options in the edit room to mess around with what it was we were making. If they would've played it slapstick, then it could've never had a serious tone; it would've always had that slight tongue-in-cheek quality. As it is, the story allows you to dip in and out of stuff: there are some serious moments, but there is also humor. The prime thing in my mind was always, "Don't take yourself too seriously." And all the way through the edit, and when we were screening it for people, I was always thinking, "It doesn't matter where people laugh. Better they hate it or love it than have an ambivalence towards it."
Beaks: I like that the film has got a rowdy, blue-collar feel. Even though you're getting at bigger ideas than class, it really is, at its core, about the American Dream; it's about this guy who aspires to something a little better than what he's got now.
Sapochnik: Absolutely. And I think at its core... we had this interesting conversation when we first set the movie up at the studio, and we were on the road to making it; there were these final tweaks going, and one of the comments was "We need to make the main character more likable." It was funny because I was sitting there going to myself, "Um, he is a fascist thug. How could he be more likable? How can you do that without going against the nature of the character?" In one sense, they were asking to do something that went against the nature of the character, but at the same time they were saying that we need to engage the audience right at the beginning. I think the chemistry, which is the buddy-cop movie - which is a very American theme - and the brotherly love, which is almost like the other love story in the movie... that seemed to me a kind of interesting way into the story that played on the expectations you might have. We were making it for American audiences, but with a European sensibility. That evolved into this very loving, very caring, but somewhat destructive relationship between these two characters; they both want something else. Jake wants everything to stay the same, while Remy is at the beginning of his descent into the end - which is his desire to be different, but the inability to confront that head-on. And something has to happen to make him have that epiphany.
Beaks: He's butting up against his limitations as a person. Not that he doesn't have the capacity to do better, but he is going out of his depth.
Sapochnik: When we talked about other characters as a reference point for Remy, we talked a lot about Indiana Jones. He's my favorite kind of hero - but, my god, he does some really dumb things. He's not the brightest spark on the block. It's funny, because there was this one day when Jude came up to me and said, "Listen, I was reading the script last night, and something's really bugging me, and I realized what it is: this guy's just not that smart." And inside I was like, "Fantastic!" It can be quite complicated for a lead actor to dumb down without losing the respect for or integrity of their own character. But when Jude got that, it flipped a switch in him, and it really made the character start to come to life. You're right, he is operating outside his own capacity, and I think it's almost like he's very reluctant most of the time to be dragged through most of the changes he goes through. And yet he's inevitably drawn to them. That creates conflict, and that's what drama's all about.
Beaks: You mentioned a European sensibility. The mixture of the humor and the extreme violence - and I mean this as a compliment - reminds me of a Paul Verhoeven movie. In working with the studio, did you ever use Verhoeven as an example of how you could make a commercially successful, darkly comedic R-rated sci-fi?
Sapochnik: 300 had just come out, and it had done incredibly well; that was quite helpful for us. Also, THE DARK KNIGHT... was an intelligent action film that had done very well. Along the way, there were various points where we had to reengage and re-persuade the studio that this was a good movie to continue investing into, because of its somewhat risky nature. Now and then, we would get these opportunities where we could say, "Look, rather than dumbing this down to reach the broadest audience possible, why don't we really go for a specific audience and... lavish them with jewels as it were. (Laughs) Give them what they want!" At the same time, there's been a very interesting thing I've noticed: there's an even stronger reaction from the female audience than the male audience. The females will either hate it or they'll find it incredibly engaging. It's not the kind of movie they'd find themselves going to out of choice, but when they get there, there are elements that seem to really hit nerves with them. That's been a very interesting experience. Obviously, your expectation is that this will play to male seventeen- to twenty-five year olds. If it strikes a chord with you, it strikes a chord for a number of different reasons, but it doesn't have people who are ambivalent about it. They either like it or really hate it.
Beaks: I tend to be a music snob when it comes to movies. I really hate it when people recycle the same cues over and over again. So I was very happy to hear William Bell's "Everyday Will Be LIke a Holiday" in that pivotal scene with Jude and RZA. That's a great cue. How did you guys decide on that song?
