With the number of remakes floating about Hollywood, another remake sounded like just another film made to grab some cash and end on a sour note. I was a fan of the rock ‘n’ roll musical “Repo! The Genetic Opera” and assumed that the new movie “Repo Men” was based on it due to having the same concept and similar story events — just eschewing the singing parts for action sequences. Interestingly enough, they were developed completely independently — “Repo Men” is based only on a short novel begun in 1997, which was written shortly before “Repo!” a play written in 2000.

So, with that in mind — learned shortly before going to view the movie — there was a tingle of excitement in the air while I wondered how bad or maybe how tolerable the semi-cheesy looking sci-fi action flick “Repo Men” would end up being.

I was very happily mistaken.

“Repo Men” is good — well, good enough for a sci-fi flick — but still good enough that I am looking forward to owning it.

Just for a little background, the story hinges around a world at war suffering from extreme economic depression — ring any bells? A company has developed technology that can replace lungs, hearts, livers, eyes, ears, knees, spines … basically you can replace anything human about you with a machine substitute that doesn’t give out. Why should anyone suffer, anyone’s families suffer, because of death caused by organ failure when you can get it replaced and live on happily and carefree.

Well, unless you fall behind on your payments, then repo men will come and cut you open to retrieve the organ, just the same as someone would repossess your car or house.

The story is that simple. Forest Whitaker and Jude Law play two of the best repo men in the business. Law gets second thoughts about his career after he is injured on the job, requiring a new heart, and sees how similar he now is to the people whose lives he ends in repossession jobs. Naturally, a love interest appears and Law goes on the run. His boss, played by Liev Schreiber, sends Whitaker out to get Law’s misguided heart after relapsing on payments.

While I watched this semi-predictable story unfold, I was struck by the amazing soundtrack. The musical accompaniment used in “Repo Men” is an excellent example of how video and sound can be melded to create scenes that truly grab audiences and feel good, feel inspiring. The wonderful song choices move the story along from introduction to end without once slipping off beat or out of sequence — rarely do films get this right.

The use of gore during the surgical procedures done by the repo men is well done and never seems superfluous. There is even a scene toward the end where one of these blood-filled events is made to be erotic. Yeah, seriously, slicing someone open becomes sensually, sexually seductive — a truly carnal experience.

Yet another praise for this film involves a fight scene between Whitaker and Law. Both of them are Army-trained, and so are understood to be experienced and efficient.

Rather than use some ridiculously flashy combat maneuvers that are less on the effective side and more just for show, as so many movies try to do nowadays, their fight is simple and looks like how two friends turned against each other would trade blows.

The film’s jokes are well-timed and just funny enough to garner a few chuckles without taking away from the action or storytelling. The audience is addressed with thoughts/statements from Law’s character to punctuate the notion that this is a book written for film — the novel that it is inspired from, “Repossession Mambo,” wasn’t released till March ’09 despite having been written 10 years earlier. And the dialogue itself is OK and thankfully not riddled with bad one-liners.

There are a few downsides, of course. When you look past the story and into the logic behind the film, you have to make a couple leaps of faith. The glaring question is never dealt with as to how this future company that builds human organs can’t install something to track its clients whose payments have relapsed. This lack of technological ingenuity could easily have been remedied with a simple line of dialogue from Schreiber’s character: “Too bad the government banned us from putting tracking devices into our products,” or something to that effect. Ignoring that detail and a few others related to it are easy enough to do, though, so it doesn’t impede the progression of the film.

The culmination of the story is where I began to worry. As the climax began, I thought, “Oh God, oh no, this is where it all goes wrong, this is where the movie dies.” Again, thankfully, I was wrong. The climax just looks a little odd and misguided, but it all works out excellently in the end. That, and there is yet another great use of a song stirred into an action sequence to appease the senses.

“Repo Men” is one film lately that entertains without trying to be the next big thing.

Go out, give it a watch and then go home and listen to the soundtrack as well.

It’s a worthwhile investment of a couple hours and a few dollars and doesn’t require you to wear ridiculous 3-D glasses to enjoy the experience.

Gabriel Stoffa is a copy editor for the Daily and a senior in communication studies