Payback (* 1/2 out of four) Starring Mel Gibson, Maria Bello, Kris Kristofferson Written by Donald E. Westlake, adapted from the novel The Hunter, written by Richard Stark Directed by Brian Helgeland
It seems that I've stopped enjoying movies that should be fun to watch. Take Payback, for example, a movie that most people seem to like. However, It's horrible schlock, straight out of hollywood's vast talent for sucking creativity out of movies. It was written and directed by a guy who should have done better; however, maybe he did do better, after all, 30 percent of the movie isn't his own. Mel Gibson, that hollywood zombie, decided he didn't like the ending and had another director reshoot it. What a crock. If you sign on to do a movie, then do it the way the script calls for. Why film a movie and then look at it later and say, - No, I changed my mind, I don't like the ending. You're fired. Let's get someone else to do it. - I suppose honor is dead in Hollywood.
The end of the film is, of course, hollywoodized. Which is to say that it's happy and the guy you root for beats impossible odds to win his prize. In this case, as is most victories in Hollywood movies, Gibson's prize is a blond and money. I miss originality in film, I really do. I think audiences are so starved for it that they'll flop down a lot of money in hopes that a movie will be original. Payback's tagline - Get ready to root for the bad guy - promised an original idea, but it was far from the truth. While Gibson's character certainly broke the law, he was a character that had honor (odd that Gibson himself seems to have very little of it), wouldn't kill in front of children and protects his blond woman. There's nothing bad about him - he's a hollywood character, a person who could never exist in real life. And Gibson knows it - he spends his time trying to act like a "bad guy", and instead comes off as pretentious and arrogant.
The story involves Gibson being double-crossed by his partner (who is a real bad guy, which made me wish that we could root for him) over $70,000. Gibson recovers from multiple gunshots, is pissed (naturally), and will do whatever it takes to get the exact amount of money back - no more, no less. He makes a point of it that it's strictly 70 grand. A real bad guy would have made his ex-partner pay 25% interest. This idea is completely stretched out. Gibson ends up going after his partner and the Chicago mafia that his partner is affiliated with. What I didn't understand - this is the Chicago mafia. $70,000 is like spare change to them. They'd probably just pay the guy rather than go through the trouble of dealing with him. I think they'd respect a guy going through this much trouble for a simple $70,000.
Maybe I'm being too hard on the movie. Perhaps the filmmakers were just trying to make a simple popcorn movie. I read Roger Ebert's review and he liked Gibson in the role because he is a comic at heart playing a bad guy. That's why we're allowed to root for him. And it's true - Gibson walks the movie as if he's smiling at a joke he just heard. But he's wrong here. I wanted a Lee Marvin or old-time Clint Eastwood or somebody who wasn't a comic, just an ass kicker.
As a side note, I've just checked the Internet Movie Database and discovered that I am the 38th person to post a newsgroup review of Payback. After this many reviews, why would anyone want to read this? Really, I don't care. I'm just trying to gain membership into the on-line film critics society by posting as many reviews as I can.
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