Having already established himself as one of the greatest action directors there’s ever been through a string of classics, John Woo was always going to make the jump to Hollywood. While his Stateside ventures started off strong, they ended up coming to an ignominious conclusion with Paycheck.
Hard Target was a decent enough beginning, Broken Arrow was a vast improvement, Face/Off easily ranks as one of the all-time greats, Mission: Impossible II hauled in over half a billion at the box office, before the wheels came off after Windtalkers bombed and Paycheck ended up winning a Razzie and being greeted tepidly at best.
Just like that, Woo decided it was time to head back to home shores to continue doing what he does best, and his self-imposed Hollywood exile has lasted for a full 20 years, although it’s set to end sooner rather than later when completely dialogue-free thriller Silent Night releases.
As for Paycheck? Well, it’s not great. Razzie winner Ben Affleck’s reverse engineer earns big bucks unlocking the secrets of the competition, and gets his memory wiped at the end of every job. However, things take a wrong turn when he wakes up to discover he’s a wanted man, forcing him to retrace his steps in an effort to figure out why.
Not exactly Woo’s finest hour – or Affleck’s for that matter – but Paycheck has nonetheless been cashing in on streaming after FlixPatrol named it as one of the most-watched features on iTunes, even if it ended up being the cause of a lengthy sabbatical.