Post by FRANK the giant bunny on Mar 24, 2011 18:27:48 GMT -5
Paycheck is a 2003 film adaptation of the short story of the same name by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. It stars Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman . Michael Jennings is a reverse engineer; for enormous sums of money, he analyzes his clients' competitors' products and designs new versions that excel above and beyond the original's features. When he finishes a job, he undergoes a memory wipe with help from his friend Shorty. The wipe is achieved by computer technology able to scan one's brain and erase whatever must be erased. This ensures that he cannot be traced back to the reverse engineering effort, thereby protecting his client's intellectual property. Jennings is offered a job from James Rethrick, an old college roommate and CEO of Allcom.
Whereas none of Jennings' previous jobs has ever lasted longer than two months (because the memory technology could not go very far into the past), Rethrick informs him that this job will take up to three years. Three years later, Jennings awakens, finding himself in the year 2007. He is congratulated by Rethrick for a successful job, but when he attempts to cash in his reward he finds that he had signed away his shares of Allcom. All that Jennings has to show for his time is an envelope claiming to be the personal possessions that he entered Allcom with three years ago; instead it contains a seemingly random assortment of petty items--cigarettes, a bus ticket, hair spray, among others. As Jennings tries to figure out what happened, he is arrested by the FBI who are concerned over his involvement with Allcom and the connected disappearance and death of physicist William Dekker.
Whereas none of Jennings' previous jobs has ever lasted longer than two months (because the memory technology could not go very far into the past), Rethrick informs him that this job will take up to three years. Three years later, Jennings awakens, finding himself in the year 2007. He is congratulated by Rethrick for a successful job, but when he attempts to cash in his reward he finds that he had signed away his shares of Allcom. All that Jennings has to show for his time is an envelope claiming to be the personal possessions that he entered Allcom with three years ago; instead it contains a seemingly random assortment of petty items--cigarettes, a bus ticket, hair spray, among others. As Jennings tries to figure out what happened, he is arrested by the FBI who are concerned over his involvement with Allcom and the connected disappearance and death of physicist William Dekker.