Rating: 

The Info

Directed by: Brian Helgeland
Written by: Brian Helgeland and Terry Hayes
Starring: Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, Deborah Unger, David Paymer, Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn
Produced by: Bruce Davey

The Nutshell

A criminal gets double-crossed by his wife and partner, almost dies, and after healing, seeks payback.

The Review

    Payback is Mel Gibson's much-vaunted first attempt at playing a bad guy, and for the most part, he succeeds. As we follow the rather unfortunate life of Gibson's Porter, we become content as we watch various lowlifes get what is coming to them, and we cringe as we watch bad things happen to our loveable bad guy.

    The story is fairly simple. Porter is a criminal who gets double-crossed by his wife Lynn (Unger) and his partner in crime Val (Henry), as they rob an Asian gang of their money. The heist goes off without a hitch, but afterwards, Val and Lynn shoot him almost to the point of death and make off with $140,000 dollars, half of which is his. The opening scene is stomach-churning as we watch a filthy, drinking doctor pulling bullet fragments out of Porter while he lays unconscious. It is the most gruesome, alarming scene in the film, and serves to open things with a bang. The inevitable flashback tells us what we need to know as to why Porter is mad as hell.

    His mission is to track down Val and Lynn and get his money back. Porter is such an honourable crook that he is only asking for his share, $70,000. Turns out that Val used the money to pay off some debts he owed to a major crime syndicate run by Bronson (Kristofferson), and truly cannot repay Porter. Val's antziness whenever anyone mentions Porter's name is supposed to constantly remind us that Porter is not a man to be messed with. In some films this is considered manipulation, but in Payback, the reminders about Porter's ruthlessness are subtle enough that they can be forgiven.

    Porter finds his wife drugged and almost dead, and soon leaves her behind, in favour of a call girl for whom he used to chauffeur, and whom he loved. The call-girl, Rosie (Bello) has some spunk, but is largely soft-hearted, as it seems all hookers  in films are. She gets dragged into Porter's mess as he steadily pisses more and more people off until the head of the crime syndicate himself wants him dead. Along the way to hopefully getting his money back, there is a large amount of violence, several different groups of bad people including corrupt cops and Asian street gangs, and some welcome, Gibson-style humour.

    Keeping the film light is a running gag about just how much money is owed to Porter. Val assumes that he is after the whole $140,000 and tells his bosses in the syndicate this. Eventually everyone but Porter thinks he is owed the full amount, and Porter's attempts at being noble and correcting everyone's impressions serves to remind us that this is indeed a Mel Gibson film, and that no matter how ruthless he is, he is still Mel, and as such will always have a wisecrack or witty comment to mutter, and will always be ready to wink at you with his famously blues eyes.

    The various lowlifes are an interesting group. Writer/director Brian Helgeland and writer Terry Hayes understand how to make interesting bad guys. Val is a smarmy, cowardly villain who is only really mean around those who he knows he is dominant to. Around Porter, indeed even at the mention of Porter's name, he gets jittery and unsure, and takes out his frustration on weaker criminals around him, most often Stegman (Paymer), a weaselly little shark who you just know never does any dirty work himself. James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson add comedy and menace respectively as crime bosses, while Lucy Alexis Liu adds a demented, perverted twist as the dominatrix Pearl.

    By the end, you realize that, refreshingly enough, while you figured correctly that Porter would get his money, the manner in which he gets it, and his state of mind and body in the end are a welcome surprise. While Mel is still Mel, he makes a pretty entertaining bad guy. Folks will have a pretty good time watching this film.

Copyright - Tim Chandler

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