# Payback (1999)

### reviewed by
Jamie Peck

PAYBACK Reviewed by Jamie Peck

Rating: **1/2 (out of ****) Paramount / 1:41 / 1999 / R (edgy violence, langauge, sexuality, drugs) Cast: Mel Gibson; Maria Bello; Gregg Henry; James Coburn; Kris Kristofferson; William Devane; Lucy Liu; David Paymer; Deborah Kara Unger Director: Brian Helgeland Screenplay: Terry Hayes; Brian Helgeland

If you don't flinch at the thought of a guy getting his toes broken one by one with a mini-sledgehammer - and the sickening crunch booming in amped-up surround sound - then "Payback" is without a doubt your kind of movie. Though said torture scene - easily cinema's nastiest since Kathy Bates fractured James Caan's ankles in "Misery" - happens near the climax of this gritty crime thriller, it's preceded by a steady stream of drug overdoses, bone-smashing, oozing wounds, bloodletting, sadomasochism, various mayhem and other very bad things. Don't be fooled by perennial nice guy Mel Gibson's casting in the lead role - in "Payback," nice guys finish last.

In fact, it'd probably be a safe bet to accuse "Payback" of employing nary a nice guy in its complex story. Gibson's Porter character is the closest thing to a protagonist it has, and audiences will get the gist of his nastiness from the opening on: Not only does he narrate the film in the gravelly, low-octave hush commonly associated with the rogues gallery, we also get our first glimpse of him as he swipes a cash stash from a crippled vet. OK, so this panhandler turns out to be phony - even the bit parts aren't sympathetic here - but the point is that this Porter guy is someone with a vicious streak you definitely don't want to provoke.

Too late. Gibson starts off "Payback" already in a snit, and an understandable one at that. It seems he recently fell the victim of a scam at the hands of his duplicitous partner Val (Gregg Henry); Val helped Porter pull off a $140,000 heist from the Chinese mob and then stabbed - well, shot, if you really wanna know - his buddy in the back, leaving him for dead. But heavies rarely go down without a fight, and when Porter makes an unexpected recovery some months down the road, he hits the mean streets to track down Val and collect his $70,000 cut by any means necessary. This is where all the afore-mentioned unpleasantness kicks in.

"Payback" is so deliriously violent that audiences expecting a cuddly crime yarn a la the last few "Lethal Weapons" are going to be shocked into submission. And speaking of submission, one of the recurring vicious plot threads likely to distress unsuspecting viewers involves the kinky machinations of an Asian dominatrix named Pearl ("Ally McBeal"'s Lucy Liu), a gal who mingles pleasure and pain with malicious glee. Like it or not, the supporting cast includes many colorful roles like the above, and their featured sidetracks are far more fun to behold than Porter's pulpy lust for revenge. As assorted lowlifes, David Paymer, James Coburn, William Devane and Kris Kristofferson steal more than their share of scenes.

Much has been made of the fact that "Payback" had quite a troubled production schedule - apparently director Brian Helgeland's cut of the film did not appease Gibson, or something of the like, and a decent amount of new footage was reshot in order to lighten the tone a bit. It sort of shows: The first half of the movie is exceedingly dark and brooding in ways that are almost distancing, while act two exceedingly lets humor (mostly of the black comedy variety) and its star's never-fail charm seep into the mix. The hard-to-classify final result - you try putting it in the appropriate genre - is dangerously uneven but still a decent game of double-crossing and one-upmanship.

© 1999 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit The Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/ "There is possibly an audience for this movie, but I have the oddest feeling that on opening night the people in the theater will all be in black and white. See 'Pleasantville' if you wonder what I mean. In fact, see 'Pleasantville' anyway." -Roger Ebert on "I'll Be Home for Christmas"

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