In preparation for the forthcoming festive period and the vast number of movies I imagine will be recorded, I guess that some hard disc space will need to be freed up. Of course, this means ploughing my way through a large number of movies in a short space of time so I started with this - a dirty and gritty crime film where Mel Gibson started to shed his carefully cultivated 'good guy' image. Seems like a long time ago since he enjoyed such a reputation but the problem I have with this movie is that it's trying too hard to be a neo-noir thriller when all it actually is is a depressing flick where bad people do bad things to worse people.
Gibson plays Porter, a professional career criminal with a talent for inflicting pain and a certified mean streak. But when he's betrayed by his old partner Val Resnick (Gregg Henry) and his wife Lynn (Deborah Unger) for the relatively modest sum of $70'000 and left for dead, Porter begins the long road back to recovery and revenge. But once he starts asking questions, Porter quickly finds that getting his money back is a little harder than he first supposed. First of all, he has a couple of crooked cops on his tail (Bill Duke and Jack Conley) plus Val's twisted mistress Pearl (Lucy Liu) and her goons as well. But Porter's biggest problem is that Val is a small cog in a big machine and Porter doesn't have many friends...
Essentially a retread of "Point Blank" (1967), "Payback" offers viewers a simple story attempting to be a classic film noir - faded palette, lots of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, a vast collection of low-lifes and scumbags and a narration from a world-weary protagonist. I can't call Porter a 'hero' because he's not - he's just as nasty and vicious as the criminals he's going after. Ultimately, I didn't care whether he got his money back or not and this is only part of the problem. The action took a bloody age to arrive and even then, only in fits and starts which left me feeling short-changed as did the film's short duration, despite the dumb-as-hammers plot. Performances are much better than the material deserved but Gibson is the only one to get any significant screen time. Henry probably has the second-most amount of screen time alongside his "Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever" co-star Liu and trust me, the bullets act better than they did in that.
I should have enjoyed this more because it's right up my street and yet, "Payback" is missing the magic spark. It feels too grimy, gritty and seedy for its own good as if it will compensate for the lack of interest in proceedings. Like a pig rolling around in the proverbial, "Payback" is resolutely old-school without having any of the drama, appeal or excitement of proper crime thrillers like... hmmm, let me think "Point Blank". If you want a simple and short crime flick that's as grim as a cancer patient's chances then this will do the trick. However, if you're looking for a properly noirish thriller then I reckon you're better off looking elsewhere.
Gibson plays Porter, a professional career criminal with a talent for inflicting pain and a certified mean streak. But when he's betrayed by his old partner Val Resnick (Gregg Henry) and his wife Lynn (Deborah Unger) for the relatively modest sum of $70'000 and left for dead, Porter begins the long road back to recovery and revenge. But once he starts asking questions, Porter quickly finds that getting his money back is a little harder than he first supposed. First of all, he has a couple of crooked cops on his tail (Bill Duke and Jack Conley) plus Val's twisted mistress Pearl (Lucy Liu) and her goons as well. But Porter's biggest problem is that Val is a small cog in a big machine and Porter doesn't have many friends...
Essentially a retread of "Point Blank" (1967), "Payback" offers viewers a simple story attempting to be a classic film noir - faded palette, lots of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, a vast collection of low-lifes and scumbags and a narration from a world-weary protagonist. I can't call Porter a 'hero' because he's not - he's just as nasty and vicious as the criminals he's going after. Ultimately, I didn't care whether he got his money back or not and this is only part of the problem. The action took a bloody age to arrive and even then, only in fits and starts which left me feeling short-changed as did the film's short duration, despite the dumb-as-hammers plot. Performances are much better than the material deserved but Gibson is the only one to get any significant screen time. Henry probably has the second-most amount of screen time alongside his "Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever" co-star Liu and trust me, the bullets act better than they did in that.
I should have enjoyed this more because it's right up my street and yet, "Payback" is missing the magic spark. It feels too grimy, gritty and seedy for its own good as if it will compensate for the lack of interest in proceedings. Like a pig rolling around in the proverbial, "Payback" is resolutely old-school without having any of the drama, appeal or excitement of proper crime thrillers like... hmmm, let me think "Point Blank". If you want a simple and short crime flick that's as grim as a cancer patient's chances then this will do the trick. However, if you're looking for a properly noirish thriller then I reckon you're better off looking elsewhere.