Paycheck is one of the better examples of what I call the Treadmill Thriller, in which a character is involved, unknowingly in building/devising something world altering for the government or a shady corporation, or he witnessed the building of it, and after the 20 minute set-up of this product, he spends the next 70 minutes running, constantly barely eluding capture, even though he should have been killed as soon as he was found out. The lead is always on the move and the henchman/villains are just behind him, as if they were following right behind him on a treadmill, never able to catch up. But once the lead starts to break a sweat, he gets off the treadmill, and the villains are forever behind him. An important component is the typical fear of technology in Hollywood films, where anything new is capable of blowing up/taking over the world as it will inevitably fall into the wrong hands. See The Fugitive, Chain Reaction, and the frighteningly similar to Paycheck in look and feel (and equally mediocre and forgettable) and also based on a short story by Phillip K. Dick, Imposter, for other examples.

Tags: Aaron Eckhart, Adam Lippe, Andrew Davis, Ben Affleck, Chain Reaction, chase, corporation, Gary Fleder, Gary Sinise, Harrison Ford, Hollywood, Imposter, John Woo, Keanu Reeves, movie review, Phillip K. Dick, RegrettableSincerity.com, scienceless fiction, The Fugitive, Tommy Lee Jones, treadmill, treadmill thriller, Uma Thurman, Vincent D'onofrio

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.