# Payback (1999)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

Mel Gibson's latest action vehicle is PAYBACK (* ½), a terribly violent, terribly choppy film that's, well, just plain terrible. Armed with the expectation of seeing Gibson in the rare role of a bad guy, viewers will instead find every other character so unimaginatively despicable that Gibson will still emerge smelling like a rose. But more on that later. First, a little history…

Payback was actually filmed a while ago by first-time director Brian Helgeland, last year's Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay (L.A. Confidential) and the writer of Gibson's 1997 action blockbuster Conspiracy Theory. Reportedly, Gibson was so unhappy with the finished product that he convinced the studio to jettison Helgeland out of the editing room, leaving Gibson to make the final cut himself. Now, mind you, this shouldn't be like Jean-Claude Van Damme suddenly gaining control of a film – Gibson is, after all, an Oscar-winning director (Braveheart). But sadly, it is.

Gibson plays Porter, an ex-Marine turned hoodlum that has just scored $70,000 by robbing a Chinese money-laundering syndicate. His heroin-addicted wife (Deborah Kara Unger, The Game) double-crosses him after the heist, leaving Porter with two ugly bullet holes in his back while Porter's pilfering partner makes off with all of the loot, planning to use it to join a mysterious group called `The Outfit.'

In order to get his $70,000 back, Porter starts at the bottom of the crime world (David Paymer) and works his way to the head of The Outfit (Kris Kristofferson), meeting many zany characters along the way. He also gets back together with Rosie (Maria Bello, Permanent Midnight [and now 0 for 2 in film since leaving ER]), his girlfriend who also happens to be a whore controlled by The Outfit. The only other female in Payback is an Asian hooker with a specialty in sadomasochism. So, for those of you women keeping track at home, that's two whores and a junkie. And the three of them are routinely beaten by whichever male character happens to be in the scene with them. Hey, you've come a long way, baby!

Early into the picture, in one of the only pleasing scenes, we see a beat-up and penniless Porter stealing $3 from a panhandler and parlaying it into a new suit, a new gun and several hundred dollars by simply pick-pocketing and leaving lousy tips. The film is also accented by Porter's sporadic, gravel-voiced narrations that seem haphazardly thrown in just to make the awkward scenes blend together better. There are also several scenes that run out of sequence; again, probably due to Gibson's attempt to salvage his project. For his $20 million fee, he could have offered to do a lot more.

As an added bonus, every frame of Payback seems to be bathed in blue light. You may have seen the style before in television commercials or your favorite music videos. I have no idea what this means. Is it a metaphor for the cheerless downcasts that the film portrays? Or is it symbolic of its crude, distasteful content? Maybe cinematographer (Ericson Core, 187) just likes the color blue. It would have been better served if used just for the flashback scenes. Or not at all.

Helgeland also co-wrote the bland script with Terry Hayes, who scripted Gibson's last two Mad Max films. It was based on Donald E. Westlake's novel `The Hunter' which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark. Helgeland and Hayes should have used pseudonyms as well. Their story is as boring as it is formulaic, and its unnecessary graphic violence and obscenity-laced dialogue often induced my fellow viewers into uncomfortable laughter and, I swear to God, audible wincing.

Payback and Gibson's Porter are best summed up by the genius that sat behind me, who, in one particularly ridiculous scene, exclaimed, `Man, he's whack!' Whack, indeed.

Payback (1:44) is rated R for graphic violence and lewd language

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