Paycheck (12)

Some might say that Paycheck is Ben Affleck's chance to play a secret agent role, since his buddy Matt Damon did such a good job in the "Bourne Identity". In this movie, Ben is a reverse engineer. That means that people bring him technology that they want to understand, he takes it apart, in order to realize how it is built. When he is done, he shares the information with the firm that hires him. His jobs take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. Since his jobs involve complete secrecy, he has to live "on site", and can't leave until he is done. To prevent him from sharing any of the knowledge with others, they erase the part of his memory during the time he was working. He is paid well. The first job you see him do took 2 months, and he was paid 500,000.

It is very interesting to see how he is dressed and his poses during the first 5 minutes of the movie. He is dressed in a very nice suit, which includes a handkerchief in the pocket. He is also wearing some very nice sunglasses - possibly Foster Grants. I wouldn't be surprised if his specific look wasn't supposed to influence the people who are going to pick the next James Bond.

Ben's co star in this film is Uma Thurman. This is definitely the year of the comeback for Uma. First, "Kill Bill", and now this movie. She looks very good, and her blue eyes steal a lot of scenes.

One of Ben's classmates from a very prestigious university has become a multimillionaire and wants to hire Ben for a project. The only catch is that it is for 2 or 3 years, not 2 weeks to 2 months as he normally works. Ben doesn't even know if he can work for that long, but since he is offered a minimum of 10 million and possibly as much as 90 million - he goes for it.

When he is done with the job, he goes to his agent to pick up his paycheck. They give him a package of about 10 random items including: shampoo, a matchbook, a chinese fortune, etc. He asks, "Where is my 90 million"? They tell him that he signed away his rights to the money 2 weeks ago, and that all he wanted were these 10 items instead. He was furious. He couldn't understand what had happened.

To make matters worse, his employer may have been dealing in something illegal. Now, the FBI is after Ben. He is trying to piece these random items together, while running from the law. He is able to contact Uma to help him solve the mystery.

The big showdown comes when Ben and Uma have to break in to the compound where he had spent the 3 years, and where Uma was a scientist. It all goes down there in some good action scenes.

When comparing "The Bourne Identity" to "Paycheck", the former is the clear winner. I give "Paycheck" a 7.5/10