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  | Payback
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| One dark, violent and entertaining flick | ||||||
| Not many people know what thier lifes worth. Porter does, $70,000. Thats what was taken from him and now he is going to get it back. Career criminals Porter (Mel Gibson) and Val (Gregg Henry) rob a gang of $140,000. When they meet with his wife to split the money they double cross Porter. He is shot and left for dead. Months later Porter returns seeking his money and will climb to the top of an underworld syndicate to collect it. This film will not appeal to everyone but I really liked it. Don't go into this movie expecting the normal Mel Gibson flick because it is anything but that. This film is full of great laughs, action and violence. It has a great supporting cast including Maria Bello, David Paymer, Lucy Liu and Kris Kristofferson. The film uses very dark colors that look great and add to the atmosphere. Payback has a great script and is full of memorable moments. I highly recommended it. The film is presented in widescreen and DD 5.1 surround. Unfortunately like most Paramount DVD's the special features are lacking. It contains only two trailers and a featurette. | ||||||
| Mel Gibson's Payback | ||||||
| "Payback" is a funny dark comedy and crime thriller at the same time. Mel Gibson plays Porter, a theif who has sworn vengence against his best friend (Gregg Henry) and his wife (Deborah Unger) for ripping off his share of heist money and leaving him for dead. He returns, enlists the aid of a hooker friend, and takes on the entire New York mob (called the Outfit). All of the men in the movie are bad guys, it's just that some are worst guys. Mel Gibson has never been funnier, even though he never cracks a smile through the whole movie. His delivery is dead pan, and that makes it so much funnier. Gibson's Porter (there is no first name) is tough. Porter has a kind of street smart that allows him to survive, much like a fox in the woods, always having the bad guys fall into their own traps. Lucy Liu is also pretty good as an extream S&M dominatrix. The three main bad guys are old hands at being bad. Kris Kristofferson is the head of the Outfit, Bronson. James Coburn is funny as the older man, Fairfax. And William Devane as Carter, a slimy day supervisor is funny at how casual he orders rather grisly murders. The violence is gruesome (though not exactly "Friday the 13th" level), but it is done in a "Three Stoges" extreamity that's kind of comic (although the torture scene at the end is not at all funny, I'll never look at Three Little Pigs the same way). I loved this movie, it has action, comedy, and a melodramatic scene that is out of this world. "Payback" is based on Richard Stark's "The Hunter", the first Parker novel. The movie has the correct feel that jibes with the book. | ||||||
| phrase on cover says it all. | ||||||
| "Get ready to root for the bad guy." I've been a Gibson fan for years. From the Lethal Weapon series, to Braveheart, to Hamlet. So, needless to say, I had to go after reading that Mel was playing a bad guy. It's a role he naturally roles into. It's against type Mel's usually good-duy role, so that makes it more fun. It's very dark, and rather violent. Not a movie for the weak of heart. From the opening scene this movie doesn't relent. He takes change from a homeless man.Lift a guys wallet, and then assumes his identity whereupon he withdraws several hundred dollars, he buys a suit, he buys 3 expsensive watches, and immediately pawns them. (spoiler over) That said the movie is just too well acted for people to say anything negative against it. | ||||||
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