Retro Film Review: Payback (1999)

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Overwhelming majority of 1990s Hollywood films clobbered by critics deserved such fate. However, many such occurrences happened for the wrong reasons. Critics that savaged Hollywood atrocities were known to miss some important points. One of those examples can found in the fate of Payback, 1999 thriller directed by Brian Helgeland.

The plot of the film is set in the Chicago underworld. Porter (played by Mel Gibson) is a professional criminal who, together with his friend Val Resnick (played by Gregg Henry) managed to steal some 140,000 US$ from Chinese mafia. Unfortunately for Porter, he doesn't get chance to enjoy his share of the loot - Val shoots him in the back, takes money and escapes together with Porter's drugged out wife Lynn (played by Deborah Kara Unger). Porter miraculously survives and after few months of recovery starts to search for Val and his 70,000 US$. He learns that Val can't give him back the money because he had spent it in order to win favour of all-powerful crime syndicate. Porter, apparently unimpressed, demands that money from syndicate. In doing so, he receives help from Rosie (played by Maria Bello), prostitute with whom he had relationship in the past.

Those more familiar with classic American cinema would quickly recognise that Payback in many ways resembles Point Blank, cult 1967 crime thriller directed by John Boorman. Those familiar with the trends of late 1990s Hollywood would quickly recognise Payback as just another in the series of pointless remakes of Hollywood classics. But few critics, at least those in USA, actually paid much attention to this detail. They were more worried about excessive amounts of violence, especially in times when American establishment was becoming concerned with the school shootings and their impact on the impeccable image of Clinton's America.

Payback is indeed a very violent film, but violence itself isn't the reason why this film should be criticised. Problem is in the film-maker's inability to deliver its main promise - to create entertaining genre films with characters beyond Hollywood's conventions of morality. Character of Porter is written as antithesis of 1990s Hollywood hero - he is supposed to be an ultra-violent thug, interested only in money and devoid of all scruples. But he is being played by Mel Gibson who, despite all his efforts, simply can't shake off the image of noble protagonist. Helgeland's script, co-written with Terry Hayes, compromises the concept even further by conforming to Hollywood conventions - the only people Porter tends to encounter are gangsters, thugs and corrupt policemen, in other words, scum that makes Porter look good in comparison. The only exception is just another cliche - prostitute with the heart of gold who, naturally, transforms Porter into knight in shining armour.

Even with such cliches, Payback could have been at least marginally attractive film. Unfortunately, apart from Ericson Core's cinematography that tries to give some sort of homage to nihilistic 1970s crime films, there isn't anything particularly interesting in this film. Porter is transformed into superman who easily takes care of his enemies in the series of predictable and repetitive encounters. Helgeland's directing abilities are nothing to write home about and the film also shows signs of being re-shot by another director following much publicised creative row between Helgeland and Gibson. The acting is also bad - Gibson, who has the potential to play complex character, never actually shows Porter to be convincing villain while the rest of the cast is wasted in short and forgettable cameos. Some performances are embarrassing to watch, especially in case of Lucy Liu, wasted in the thankless role of Asian dominatrix, character representing another lame attempt of injecting black humour to this unoriginal story. Because of betraying its own concept, Payback deserved to sink into oblivion just like it deserved to get pounded by critics.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on June 14th 2004)