Payback (1999, R)
Directed by Brian Helgeland (LA Confidential)
Written by Brian Helgeland
Based upon the novel "The Hunter" by Richard Stark
Starring Mel Gibson, David Paymer, Deborah Kara Unger, and Lucy Alexis Lui
I'm a man of firsts. I am the first to make strange comparisons, the first to make a writing style composed entirely of hybridization (my own dubbing being the "mockingbird" style, after a Tom Robbins simile in his novel "Skinny Legs and All"). I'm also the first, and probably the last, to compare Payback to Quenton Tarantino.
What could a movie like Payback have to do with anything the "the Q" has ever done? Could it be that, with no morals and no real point other than entertainment, with music mixed in that comes from the era which inspires the writer, that Payback is closest to Tarantino's 1992 debut Reservoir Dogs?
You probably disagree. In fact, you're probably thinking of looking me up so you can kill me if you're a hard-core Tarantino fan. But, with Mel Gibson in the role of Porter, the anti-hero of our strange story, I couldn't help but be reminded of the moral ambiguity that "the Q" dishes to us.
As for the plot, it's both simple and incredibly complex. Porter, quite literally a man back from the dead, has been plotting revenge for five months. Five months ago, he was shot by his junkie wife (The Game's Deborah Kara Unger, in a minor but very effective role), who was working with Val Resnik, Porter's former partner, to screw him out of $70,000. Left for dead but alive and well, Porter's back with a vengenece. He's pulling out all the stops, he's killing anyone who gets in his way, and he's going to get his money back.
Along the way to getting Val Resnik, we see Lucy Alexis Lui (Ling of "Ally MacBeal") in her funniest role yet, a leather-dressed S&M freak that likes getting beat up... but likes beating up more. She's as good with the gun as she is with the whip, and, although all the right-wing conservatives in the theatre I saw it in were reaching for their nitroglycerin every time she came on the screen, I was laughing my ass off.
Porter also hooks up with an old friend (a hooker, as a matter of fact), gets to beat up David Paymer (who keeps asking "You're not gonna fuckin kill me, are ya?"), and destroys a suppossedly powerful crime lord while he's at it.
Gibson does his usual brown hair-blue eyes Thunder From Down Under spiel, giving a moderately good performance in a moderately good movie. He doesn't endorse positive moral values... in fact, no one does. In the words of Lori Petty from Tank Girl "Lock up your children". Besides graphic violence and a touch of S&M, the film isn't all that bad though. Just make sure you don't send a sociopath in, they may get ideas.
Like almost any script he delivers (with the exception of The Postman), Brian Helegand turns out ann unusually dry repertoir of humor while telling a likeable story. Also, like his Oscar winning co-written screenplay LA Confidential, it has characters you love to hate and characters you love to hate to love.
I wouldn't say this is action packed, either. In fact, on the action scale, it's about a five. But this film isn't held together by action, it's held together by the script staccato pace. The storyline, from the opening line, grabs you, pulls you in and lets you enjoy what's happenning to you.
Overall, like Reservoir Dogs, I won't extol it as one of the greatest films of all time, but, its the best out there. And it certainly is a damn good film, too. See it, you'll agree. Just make sure you pay the babysitter in cash.
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