Repo Men: The Cast's Roles That Should Be Repossessed

Even the best of actors makes a bad movie now and again, and though we haven't seen it yet, it seems this week's non-Repo Man remake Repo Men (think of it as Repo: The Genetic Opera, but without the opera -- and the Sarah Brightman stabbing her own eyes out) is another bad movie on a fine group of likable actors' resumes. So in the spirit of terrible decisions and repossession, here are the roles we'd like to scrub from each of the movie's core cast's resumes.

Jude Law
There are so many! A man mired as much by his personal indiscretions as he is by his lackluster career choices, Jude Law always takes one step forward and one step back. He was excellent in Road to Perdition, then the travesty that was Cold Mountain happened. Then I Heart Huckabees offended even the most pretentious of philosophy enthusiasts, and not even a viral video of Lily Tomlin freaking out on set could compel people to watch the film. Then came Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Alfie and Closer, before The Aviator and the better-than-it-should-be romantic comedy The Holiday put him back on an upturn. Repo Men is likely his latest step backwards, but to cut to the chase here: Sky Captain was at least lauded in retrospect for its special effects, and Closer has become somewhat of a cult film, so Alfie loses. Big time. Michael Caine himself should come to collect that thing.

Carice van Houten
Black Book turned the Dutch actress into a rising star and critical favorite; Valkyrie plummeted her back into obscurity. World War II movies are indeed a safe path to awards and accolades, but it's all about role choice: going immediately from "awesome Jewish Nazi double agent" to "dutiful Tom Cruise wife" is not the greatest career path, apparently. (She'll come back from it though -- she is awesome.)

Forest Whitaker
In the interest of fairness, I won't count anything before Panic Room, which was his first recent hit big enough to allow him a little freedom in the subsequent roles he chose. So to contrast The Last King of Scotland and the Oprah approved The Great Debaters (I refuse to mess with Oprah) we have: Street Kings, Vantage Point, Our Family Wedding and the direct-to-DVD Jessica Biel stripper movie Powder Blue. Admittedly, I didn't see the last two, but I did see Street Kings and Vantage Point, and while they are both very, very bad movies, I'm going to go with his role as the formulaic and cliché-riddled loose cannon cop Captain Jack Wander of Street Kings for the win!

RZA
I wasn't even going to include RZA it pains me so to discredit him, but he did participate in not only Repo Men, but a Jennifer Aniston movie as well, and there's just no excuse for that. Derailed, consider yourself repossessed from not only RZA's IMDB page, but Clive Owen's as well, while we're at it.

Alice Braga
After 2002's City of God, critics talked about Alice Braga like she was going to promptly take over Hollywood. And she has continued working... in films like Redbelt, Blindness and I Am Legend. Which makes things easy for me: I Am Legend, for having cartoon-quality zombies despite an enormous budget, and for completely disregarding the point of the novel it was based on (not to mention Omega Man, like Omega Man was so hard to understand in the first place) in an effort to be as insultingly unchallenging to its audience as possible.

Liev Schreiber
Call it the Alfie curse: a talented actor makes a couple well-received cred films, and then tries to break out as a star with an unnecessary remake of a '60s classic. In Liev Schreiber's case, that uninspired remake is The Manchurian Candidate, and it should be repossessed from his resume.

Your least favorite Repo Men cast roles? Leave 'em in the comments.

Watch an exclusive Q&A with Repo Men stars Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

18 Comments

March 15, 2010 3:51 PM
charley
Reply

You're insane! I can't wait for this film. Why don't you just go read a tabloid, that seems to be good enough entertainment for your feeble mind.

March 15, 2010 4:13 PM
Brixtonville
Reply
replied to comment from charley

The guy who wants to see Repo is insulting other people's feeble minds?

March 15, 2010 4:43 PM
scagneti
Reply

I'm just content that in a time of unnecessary remakes, Repo Men sounds like an original idea. And that it's not a remake of Repo Man.

March 15, 2010 4:45 PM
hai
Reply
replied to comment from scagneti

but it's not. it's just the same thing as repo: the genetic opera, but without singing.

March 15, 2010 5:02 PM
Winninghamster
Reply

The Manchurian Candidate remake was blah overall, but Liev Schreiber was outstanding in it.

March 15, 2010 5:30 PM
pim
Reply
replied to comment from hai

No, it's not. The RTGO creators and lackey fans would have you believe so. Repo Men looks far more entertaining than that tuneless shitfest.

March 16, 2010 12:17 PM
Kia
Reply

You take it back! I loved Alfie

March 16, 2010 2:09 PM
zelmia
Reply

There was once a time when Jude Law made thoughtful, sometimes controversial choices in his roles. Today, he's playing Watson in the latest version of Sherlock Holmes. Not that that film wasn't entertaining or that he wasn't good in it. But he's certainly come a long way out of "The Midnight Garden of Good and Evil".

March 16, 2010 11:25 PM
alice
Reply

i loved jude law in "the wisdom of crocodiles." does that movie qualify as one of his good ones, or as one of his bad ones?

March 17, 2010 2:11 AM
WonderV
Reply

I heart 'I heart Huckabees' I know scores of folk that do. This site was better before it was Bravo-ed.

March 17, 2010 3:00 AM
elci
Reply

I thought Closer was great -- one of my fave Jude Law performances, actually. I think that might be the only film in which his acting impressed upon me in any way.

March 17, 2010 11:23 AM
RJ
Reply

No, if you're going to repossess a Liev Schreiber film role, it should be his role from the completely unnecessary remake of "The Omen." "Manchurian Candidate" wasn't nearly as terrible as it could have been.

March 17, 2010 12:41 PM
Stage
Reply
replied to comment from Kia

Word. Alfie is one of my guiltiest pleasures.

March 17, 2010 2:25 PM
Lynne
Reply

I'm sorry but if you're going to scrub anything from Liev Schreiber's resume it should absolutely be Kate & Leopold. Absolutely hideous movie.

March 17, 2010 5:09 PM
Olivia
Reply

Jude Law's Alfie wasn't bad in itself. But how can you hope to improve on the original Michael Caine version?

March 18, 2010 1:19 PM
Jeff
Reply

Repo: The Genetic Opera plays on this theme better.

April 10, 2010 10:15 AM
Jezabelle
Reply
replied to comment from charley

I agree with Jeff. Repo men was a complete rip off of Repo the genetic opera. I hope someone sues thier asses. If someone ripped me off like that I'd be pretty mad about it. I can't even believe they are getting away with it. Repo the genetic opera is a classic. Repo men is a disaster. Repo opera love forever.

June 3, 2010 7:44 PM
Lacey Tights Lady
Reply

Round about six million persons in this earth, 3 quarters have heard of jesus. One dude advertising in one country, initialised that, with just word of mouth. Bloggers of today have the internet with which to reach all of those people, all this at your fingertips, you can change anything, go for it bad boys!!!!!!

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