Ben Affleck stars as Michael Jennings, a brilliant yet disappointingly dull engineer whose work contract requires that his memory of his work be erased after he completes a top-secret three-year job, that plunge him into confusion and danger.
Despite John Woo’s directing, the heart-racing science fiction thriller is dissatisfactory as the whole.

After Woo’s last mishap, "Windtalkers," which turned out to be a gory and disappointing World War II tale, one might expect "Paycheck" to be the movie to redeem Woo in the category of movies characterized by amazing action scenes. Sadly, "Paycheck" turns out to be an over-the-top frustration, and although the fight scenes are worthy of the Woo rep, the storyline drowns in a sea of confusion along with the audience. The inspiration for the tale came from a story by the great nightmare-spinner Philip K. Dick ("Blade Runner"). Like most Dick tales, it’s based on a scary premise that writer Dean Georgaris tries vainly to make scarier. Jennings not only has all his work memories wiped out by his boss, affable but sinister Jimmy Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), but to his amazement, he discovers that the law is on his tail. On top of this, he has forfeited his eight-figure salary for a bagful of seemingly worthless objects: keys, tickets, scraps of paper and other flotsam.

Soon Jennings is on the run from two relentless FBI agents, Dodge (Joe Morton) and Klein (Michael C. Hall), and also from ex-boss Rethrick and his even more sinister henchman, Wolf (Colm Feore). Jennings’ only allies are his scruffy little manager, Shorty (Paul Giamatti), and fellow Rethrick employee Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman), with whom he apparently had an affair during his blackout period. Surprisingly, all the "worthless" objects Jennings acquired turn out to be beneficial: opening doors, guiding him from danger, and repeatedly saving his life.

One of the movie’s most prominent flaws is that it is extremely predictable. Woo is an action movie master, but here, not even the crash-bang pyrotechnics jolt you much. Though the duration of the movie, Affleck acts as a slick young executive plagued by over-zealous cops, and Thurman, not a face one would wish to forget, plays a role that hopefully, you will be able to forget. After seeing Thurman’s potential in Quentin Tarentino’s "Kill Bill," it is irritating to see her talent wasted in this role.

Though the tale throbs with McCarthy-era paranoia, it was obviously written in a rush, albeit by a genius writer. However unlike Steven Spielberg’s "Minority Report," taken from a similar story, it hasn’t been improved in the movie. Why, one must wonder, do Hollywood screenwriters keep producing so many of Dick’s short stories, which always need padding, when they could select promising novels like, "The Man in the High Castle," "Time out of Joint" and "A Scanner Darkly," which would make much better movies?

Perhaps it’s because the stories, so tense and fast, and with such ingenious premises, read like movie potentials. However, that is only an illusion.

After watching the movie one can’t help but be envious of Jennings for having his memory erased so that one could forgot how this seemingly fun, adventure movie turned out to be just another one to go in the $9.99 bin at your local Blockbuster.

For all you moviegoers out there, if you were planning on seeing "Paycheck", skip it and instead got out and rent Steven Spielberg’s science fiction thriller, "Minority Report." At least then you won’t be left wishing your mind had been erased.