The film begins in a stark, desolate ghetto where a half-naked man is seen laboriously pecking away at an old typewriter. Remy's contemplations reveal his musings on the fate of Schrodinger's cat. Set in 2025, we learn about a corporation known as The Union, which has perfected the creation of bio-mechanical organs available only to the wealthy or those with "good credit." If a customer defaults for three months, a Repo man is dispatched to reclaim the artificial organ, a process that often results in the customer's death.
Among the Union's elite Repo men are Remy (Jude Law) and his partner Jake Freivald (Forest Whitaker). This grueling job takes a toll on Remy's personal life, straining his marriage with Carol (Carice van Houten), pushing him to consider a shift to sales. After confronting a "Nest" — a hideout for those who have defaulted on payments — their superior Frank Mercer (Liev Schreiber) promotes them to full-time raid captains.
As Remy attempts to save his marriage through a career change, Jake convinces him that their work serves a necessary purpose despite the ethical dilemmas involved. In a pivotal moment, Remy's assignment involves repossessing a heart from the musician T-Bone, a personal favorite of his. However, an accident with a faulty defibrillator leaves Remy severely injured, requiring him to receive an artificial heart of his own.
Following his divorce from Carol, Remy temporarily stays with Jake, struggling in his attempts at sales. Unable to deceive potential clients about the dire consequences of defaulting, he returns to Repo work to pay off his irreparable debts. As he undergoes this change, his new heart allows him to empathize with the victims of his claims, paralyzing his ability to seize back the ArtifOrgs. When Jake discovers Remy's moral conflict, he takes him to another Nest to confront his hesitance.
One fateful day, after Jake's coercive efforts, Remy finds himself at odds with a debtor and is beaten unconscious. When he wakes up, he meets Beth (Alice Braga), a woman in dire need of organ replacements. Their partnership leads to a botched attempt at clearing their debts and a series of increasingly reckless decisions, including setting fire to Remy's car.
Together, they endeavor to evade the pursuing Repo men, but their efforts result in a chaotic airport encounter as Jake catches up with them. A bitter confrontation reveals that Jake had sabotaged the defibrillator incident all along, aiming for their mutual advancement within the company. After a furious battle, both Remy and Jake inflict considerable wounds on each other before Beth intervenes.
In a climactic turn of events, the duo discovers that the Union’s headquarters holds secrets that could obliterate their debts indefinitely. Armed with determination, they infiltrate the corporate stronghold, fighting through layers of security before arriving at the Pink Door — the Union's central database. With Beth's prosthetic eye used to bypass identification barriers, they courageously attempt to wipe away their accounts through painful self-sacrifice.
As tensions rise, Frank is violently dispatched at the hands of Jake, setting the stage for the climactic detonation of the corporate mainframe, which erases countless records of individuals enslaved by the Union. The aftermath sees Remy basking on a tranquil beach with Beth and Jake, having seemingly found peace, only for the narrative to reveal that Remy is, in fact, trapped in a fractured reality due to the severe brain injuries incurred earlier.
Jake, burdened by his actions, ensures that Remy's legacy and manuscript get published as The Repossession Mambo, but ultimately has plans for Beth that leave her fate uncertain. The film concludes with a haunting reflection on friendship, sacrifice, and the boundaries of human experience. Remy, oblivious to his reality, lives on in a dream, while Jake walks away with lingering regret.
