Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Mel Gibson
Mario Bello
Lucy Liu
Deborah Kara Unger
Directed by:
Brian Helgeland
At it's inception (when it was still a novel), Payback was named The Hunter and was written by Donald E. Westlake A.K.A Richard Stark. I had a very good memory of that movie, but since I had discovered the truth behind the author's awesomeness ten years later, I was bound to give it another shot.
STORYTELLING
Porter(Gibson) is a bad dude. So bad he shouldn't be alive right now. The movie opens as he's agonizing on an underground surgery table with bullets in his back, giving a mysterious monologue about his life being worth seventy K. It's not long before Porter gets back to his feet and start working back at his health physically, psychologically and financially.
You discover that Porter has been shot by his wife Lynn (Unger) and his old time's sake partner Val Resnick (portrayed by Gregg Henry) after a stick up on chinese mobsters that gave them a lot less dividends that they first anticipated. Porter thinks Resnick is freaking out, but he finds out that shooting him was a plan of his friend and his wife in order to slip out with the sum of the loot, which was 130 000$.
Porter embarks then on a journey to revenge with the lack of fear and etiquette that is proper to the people who have seen death from a close range. Setting a safe house at his old love interest Rosie (Bello), Porter will pull the strings of the crime syndicate named "The Outfit" to find a series of ruthless mobsters that keep refusing him a very simple deal: seventy grand and he will leave.
DIRECTION
What's disappointing about the work of Brian Helgeland here is not that he's doing a forgettable job, it's that he started well. The start of the movie is very stylish and remembers me of Asian directors like Chan Wook-Park or Takashii Miike. It's just that after the opening scene, he starts droning behind Gibson, leaving the actor more place than he should. It's a respectful approach to Stark and to his actors, but again, he doesn't take any chances and doesn't make it anymore rewarding than reading the novel.
ACTING
Gibson does that he does best: kicking ass and taking names. He portrays Porter through his violence and his lust for revenge. Since his emotional range is limited as an actor, it's as good as you'll get from him. Mario Bello is her usual charming, convincing self on screen, but her role is completely useless, except for giving Porter a love interest.
Gregg Henry as Val Resnick is the best actor of the lot, despite being heavy handed, there is a frantic fury about his portrayal that makes him enjoyable to watch. Deborah Kara Unger is also touching as an heroin addict wife, but you see her for what? Two scenes? And Lucy Liu plays Dominatrix Lucy Liu...you know?
INTEREST
It's a movie about mobsters working. It's a pretty good one, but that's what it is. Donald E. Westlake is the kingpin of mobsters-at-work novels and Helgeland makes a safe adaptation of it. Payback is very enjoyable but doesn't stick with you the way Guy Ritchie's gangster movies do.
Payback is lacking these on-the-side details that gives the characters a life of their own (I.E. Bob's crush on One-Two in Ritchie's RockNRolla). Helgeland is a Budweiser where Ritchie's an Alexander Keith. Beer's universally good, but some are better quality than the others.
NOTE: B
