Paycheck
Not wanting to be known as an amnesiac man, Matt Damon passed on this role as a man who loses his memory to his friend Ben Affleck. And in his hands, you just know you're in for something action-packed. Whether that means the explosions of Armageddon or the bomb that was Gigli, we just have to wait to find out. In here, Affleck plays Michael Jennings, a reverse engineer who makes existing products better. The kicker is once he's done, his memory is erased from the time he started the project to protect the company's secrets. Once he finished his latest project, Jennings is contacted by his friend Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart) who wants to recruit him for a long-term assignment. With a stock option payoff, Jennings can't refuse. He succeeds in inventing a device that sees into the future, but with his memory wiped out, he's helpless as he finds his options forfeited and the FBI after him. Only 20 clues sent to him figure to be the only way to get out of this mess and prevent a catastrophe of worldwide proportions.

If you don't think about the movie's obvious plot holes, you're in for a real treat as director John Woo keeps the action high and Affleck gives a credible performance. (However, Woo's traditional dove should have been integrated into the movie a little better instead of flying out of thin air.) Uma Thurman also does well playing Affleck's love interest while kicking some butt. But as any science-fiction fan will tell you, messing around with a story about seeing into the future can be a tricky thing. The most important question raised is if you have 20 items that Jennings has provided, how do you know using one item won't render the other 19 useless? A device that only sees into the future can presumably be only based on current events, not future variables that can be changed at will. So say once he uses the glasses, how do you know he would need the paper clip in the next scene? A whole new future would have been created, right? Geez, I guess they hadn't thought this one through either. But the pacing is quick, except for its less-than-stellar ending which drags, especially the bullet, and I did enjoy how all the items were accounted for in Jennings' little quest to save the world. On a side note, it was funny to see how all the men either were balding or had my haircut, especially Eckhart's. 2.5 stars