PAYCHECK
| Michael, a reverse engineer who is suffering from amnesia is forced to piece together his past while on the run.
CAST
This time Michael has reversed-engineered a 3D screen into a 3D hologram. To protect his client's intellectual property that he has built, he undergoes procedures to wipe his memory, something that his friend Shorty does for him. What has taken competitors years to develop, Michael can do for his clients in a couple months, and so Michael receives big paychecks for his work. This time, he receives over $500,000.
A short time afterwards, after having exercised some martial arts, his friend says he can't really understand why he accepts to erase his memory. Michael however explains he sees it as a good life, since he remembers the fun stuff like diving in Belize with beautiful women, but not his
time consuming work.
One day, Michael receives an invitation to his old college friend's wedding,James Rethrick. Some time later, Michael and Shorty are seen arriving at the party, where Michael sees a beautiful woman. He leaves Shorty to go talk to her, and learns that her name is Rachel and that she is a doctor in biology, working for his friend James.
Apparently, James always treats his company's projects like they are top secret, and so she can't tell him what she does. Michael asks her to join him and go somewhere else to enjoy each other's company, but she wants to stay at the party. She leaves him, and soon after, Michael meets his friend James.
The two hug each other and go to talk in a meeting room. James tells him he has a job for him, but can't tell him more than that it involves optics. He tells Michael that he will give him stock options in the company, saying he can guarantee an 8-figure paycheck.
Michael asks James what the catch is, and James replies that he may have to work on it for 2 to 3 years instead of 2 to 3 months like he usually does. Being unsure whether he'd want to give up 3 years of his life, his friend tells him he will never have to do any job anymore, he could retire for life.
Next, Michael arrives in a helicopter to James's technology company that is called Allcom. A man tells him he will have to leave all his belongings, which will be returned to him once his job is done, and they put his stuff in an envelope. When meeting James, Michael gets an injection that will wipe his memory from this moment on, once he receives a second injection sometime in the future. As James leads Michael out to show him his new workplace for the next 3 years, James is called upon and is required somewhere else. Michael looks around for himself in the meantime, and suddenly he meets Rachel.
They have a quick talk before James comes back, after Michael is led to a room where he meets his co-worker Dr. Dekker. As Michael is shown the project, everything is suddenly over. 3 years have passed, and Michael has finished his work.
They tell him his money has been transferred to his account. When Michael checks his stock options at home later, he sees he's worth $92,000,000. He goes to Reddy Grant the same day to discuss his finances, and talks to a woman. He receives the envelope with his old supposed items, but they aren't his, which makes him confused. But it doesn't bother him since he can buy new things, and instead asks how he can take out some of his money by selling the shares he got.
The woman confused tells him he forfeited his shares 4 weeks ago, and Michael becomes scared, having lost everything he was paid. She asks if he doesn't remember giving it away, and he says no. He tells her upset it must be a mistake since giving away $100,000,000 for some cheap stuff in an envelope is absolutely insane. He leaves to go home and make some phone calls. But then suddenly, he hears someone walking in his apartment, seeing his door has been opened. He tries to run, but men start fighting him, and he is shot by a taser gun. He ends up in an FBI interrogation room.
They say he has accepted payment of classified government technology, which is treason and that he'd be fried for that. They look through his stuff and test the fit of his watch on his wrist.
Michael is then told that a Mr. Dekker, who worked for the government developing weapons, got his classified project shelved, and so he sold technology to a private company. They think Allcom bought it, but can't prove it since Mr. Dekker was found dead. This month, patent applications were made based on designs from Mr. Dekker's work, and all documents have Michael's signature on them. They say he needs to tell them everything he knows about the owner James Rethrick.
He quickly runs through the gates and gets on a bus, and the FBI agents lose him. Michael checks his stuff in the envelope on the bus, and picks up a ring which a guy on the bus steals from him. Michael chases him off the bus, only to realize he is at Reddy Grant. Instead of continuing chasing
the thief, he goes to see the woman from before. He asks who sent him the items, and she checks, seeing he himself replaced his old items a few weeks ago, and Michael gets perplexed.
At Allcom, James is telling the man whose name is Wolfe, that Michael was supposed to die at 3 minutes after 3, and that the FBI would close it's investigation of Allcom, saying something went wrong. Wolfe says everything happened as predicted, until Michael escaped. James then asks if anyone checked the machine since Michael left the facility. They go to the machine, and as James powers it up, an error message appears and they can't use it. Wolfe is tasked to find Michael.
In a hotel, Michael is seen going through his stuff, seeing a quote on a piece of paper, and a number on the other side. He sees a metal piece with the company name "New Liberty Savings Bank" on it, but learns that it doesn't exist when he makes a phone call. He has no idea what the
different items are meant for. He calls his friend Shorty, saying he needs help, and Shorty tells him to meet him at Union Station at 9 o'clock. At the station, he sees an Edison worker opening a door, and remembers he has a key saying Edison on it. He sees a stuffed animal bird and gets a glimpse of some memory. He meets Shorty and shows him the strange envelope with stuff in it.
While Shorty explains he heard Allcom spent $500 billion on Michael's project, which is insane, Michael sees a TV where a winning lotto number is shown, which is the exact same number Michael has on his piece of paper in the envelope. He now understands. He would have never escaped the FBI without the cigarette, glasses, and bus ticket, and never gone to Reddy Grant without the ring. He forfeited his money to pay attention to his items, which he gave himself to assist him in his future.
Michael then understands, and tells Shorty that the $500 billion that Allcom spend, bought them a machine that can show the future. Back at Allcom, an engineer says a computer virus blocked the machine at 3 minutes after 3. Apparently, the virus is in the hardware and not in the software, which will take long to work their way around, but says they don't need Michael anymore. James makes a phone call, and at the train station, they begin to shoot at Michael and Shorty.
Michael gives his friend the Edison key so that he can escape through a door. Then Michael begins fighting the men while trying to run himself. He runs down into a subway, gets in behind the walls, but soon gets trapped by all the men chasing him. He checks his envelope, and picks up a lighter and a spray can, which he uses as a flamethrower. He manages to take a gun and runs, ending up on a railway track. Suddenly, Wolfe appears who says Michael brought this on himself.
Michael drops his magazine onto an electrically charged metal wire, causing a distraction so he can run. A train is heard approaching, and Wolfe laughs thinking Michael will be hit by it. Michael opens a junction box on the tunnel wall and picks up a paperclip from the envelope, managing to cause the train's emergency breaks to kick in.
Before it comes to a halt, he manages to run fast enough to avoid being hit.
Later, Michael is seen having a dream of being shot in some facility, and wakes up. While cleaning himself up, water hits the "New Liberty Savings Bank" metal piece, revealing the name of a "Café Michelle". He calls up to see if he made any reservation at the café, which he learns he did. Next, Rachel is seen with some birds in a cage, watching some photos of her and Michael. James knocks on the door, telling her Michael left Allcom permanently yesterday, erasing his memory. Rachel didn't know he had done that, becomes saddened, and says Michael promised he wouldn't go through with it and that he didn't care about the money. Later, she's about to take a shower, and James and Wolfe spy on her to find clues about Michael. Suddenly, Rachel sees something and becomes happy, which James and Wolfe notice.
Rachel leaves and escapes the facility. Meanwhile, men search her partment, and eventually Wolfe discovers a message on the bathroom mirror, instructing to meet him at Café Michelle at 1 pm.
Later, Rachel arrives at the café, but Michael, who is there already, seems a bit skeptical that it's her. Outside, Wolfe is seen telling James over radio that cops are outside and they can't shoot Michael. James sees the envelope Michael is carrying through a spy camera that the woman is wearing, figuring that is how Michael manages to escape them. Through an earpiece, he tells the woman talking to Michael, whose actual name is Maya, to convince Michael to give her some item from the envelope and screw things up for him, which she manages to do. However, at that second, real Rachel appears knocking the woman unconscious.
Wolfe shoots at them, but misses, after which Michael retrieves the item he gave Maya, and the two run.
They get to a parking lot, and Michael picks up a key from his envelope.
It's not for a car, but a motorcycle. A high-speed chase ensues, where not only James's men are after him, but the FBI has found out about him and finds him from a helicopter, and cops eventually start chasing them instead. Michael manages to escape them through a tunnel.
In a hotel later, Rachel asks if he remembers her, which he saddened says he doesn't. He looks through images and videos of the two from the past 3 years, being together. He tells Rachel he is sorry and that he shouldn't have left, and she hugs him.
Back at Allcom, James and Wolfe are extremely upset about how much trouble Michael has caused them.
Michael is seen having the dream about being shot again, and Rachel asks if he's okay, which he answers he is. Michael suddenly sees the optical glass from the envelope, lying on the postage stamps on it. He picks it up and looks closer at the stamps, and sees something tiny on Mr. Einstein's eye on one of them. They go to a nearby school and look through a microscope, seeing small small images of newspapers. They soon discover they are all from the future, showing how James becomes the most powerful man in the world, creating a dystopia, and resulting in a world war. Michael says he has to destroy the machine since seeing the future will take away the mystery of what it holds, and in turn cause people to lose hope.
At Allcom, the engineer called Stevens hasn't figured out the hardware virus yet, but informs James it will take one day at the most. The FBI discovers Michael has an Allcom security pass in his envelope, figuring he will go back to the company. Next, Michael and Rachel arrive at Allcom, where they get spotted by security.
James is informed they are there, and he gets an idea, telling security not to stop the duo. They watch as Michael get closer to the room with the machine, and James orders the guards outside the room to go away so that Michael can get to it and fix the hardware virus, after which they plan to take him. As the two arrive, Rachel says something is wrong since the guards are gone, and so the two barricade themselves inside by closing the door and jamming the lock using a metal coin from Michael's envelope. Michael then powers the machine up, but the error message is shown.
He understands he created a bug in the system, and the two climb down into the machine to fix it. He picks up a crossword from his envelope, and inspects numbers he has marked on it to find the circuit board and remove the bug. The machine starts and James orders guards to take them. Michael uses the machine, and he sees himself in the lab just outside the machine room, being shot, like in his dream. Outside, James and the others try to get in, but the coin prevents them from unlocking the door.
While Rachel tries to find a way out, Michael takes a bullet from the envelope and attaches it to a moving part in the machine that fires periodically. James and his men detonate the lock and get in, just as Rachel and Michael escape through a vent. While the two fight with men outside, James uses the machine to attempt to see what Michael will do in the future.
The fight outside intensifies and Michael gets a hold of a machine gun, firing until hitting tubes that explode. James sees how Michael will be shot by him outside the room on the facility catwalks.
Michael finds a stick and starts fighting men with it. As he has fended them off, he suddenly sees James approaching. He runs to Rachel and picks up a gun, saying they have to go, and Rachel tells him they must avoid the facility catwalks, to which Michael replies that, he knows. But as the two are about to get out from the lab, Michael traps himself inside, telling the upset Rachel that she must leave. Unwilling, but having no choice, she runs.
Michael goes back inside, calling James name. They find each other, and begin fighting one another. The fight is long and intense, and no one seems to have the upper hand, until suddenly James knocks Michael almost unconscious with a hard object. He strangles him, and lifts him up on the facility catwalks above, where Michael falls off. At the same time, the FBI storms the building, saying they must confiscate the machine for their own use. Michael sees guards bringing Rachel out on the catwalks, letting her run up to Michael, and the two hug each other.
Wolfe is seen starting the machine, looking at himself. Back on the catwalks, Rachel sees an FBI agent behind them. James loads a gun, but then suddenly his wristwatch starts beeping, saying "GO". The FBI agent fires a shot, and Michael dodges the bullet so that it instead hits James.
At the machine, Wolfe sees himself in an explosion, caused by the bullet Michael planted, and tries to run out, but is caught in the explosion like predicted. Michael and Rachel fall down from the catwalks, but are not harmed, and the two leave the facility. Later, some FBI boss is seen being devastated that the machine is destroyed.
Suddenly Shorty appears with the birds in the cage. Michael mentions he has some faint memories about the birds, and Shorty comments he thinks it's ironic he remembers the birds, but not something about the future that will make them money.
Suddenly, Michael remembers the note with a quote, saying: 'if you only look where you can't go, you will miss the riches below'. Michael removes the bottom of the cage, figuring the quote refers to riches below the cage, from which one can't escape from. And there, to their surprise, lies a piece of paper, a winning lottery ticket, worth $90 million, and they all three absolutely erupt of joy and happiness.
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