Payback (DVD)

(Film Only Review) Tough guy criminal Porter (we never find out his first name) and his gang made up of his wife Lynn and criminal acquaintance Val decide to do a crash and snatch job stealing the illicit takings of a Chinese gang. All goes smoothly and although the £140000 dollars is not as much as Porter was expecting they seem to have got away unscathed. However Porter is double crossed by both his partners in crime and after being shot in the back is left for dead. Of course he isn’t dead otherwise it would be a very short movie and once recovered his only thought is to get his money back hence the ‘Payback’ in the title and also ‘payback’ on those that ...  Read the complete review

Porter is not amused. After carrying out a robbery on some Oriental gentlemen to the tune of $140,000, he's shot in the back, robbed and left for dead by his wife and his partner. The motive is that his partner needs $130,000 to buy his way back into organised crime and has taken Porter's share. Now, five months later, he's back and he wants his money back, all $70,000 of it. Porter (voice over): "Not many people know what their life's worth is. I do. Seventy grand. That's what they took from me. And that's what I was going to get back." Payback is a brutal film at time, but extremely funny with it. Porter's search for his ex-partner and ...  Read the complete review

Mel Gibson stars in this revenge thriller as Porter, a man betrayed from his share of the cash from a heist. The film is all about his trail for revenge, as he works his way up the ladder of crime to the very top. I love Mel Gibson, and find him an actor capable of giving great depth in a performance, but it doesn't happen here. This 1999 action thriller is really all about the plot, and that's not that interesting in itself. Gibson does a good enough job as Porter, but he doesn't really give any depth to the character; the result is that you don't really care about him too much. The plot is quite basic, although there are bits that are really ...  Read the complete review

It's films like 1999's Payback that make you wonder why everyone seems to favour complex storylines, whilst having a strong emphasis upon character development. For Porter (Mel Gibson) it's not about how much money he has to get back from the people that stole it from him, but the whole principle of the thing. It's a simple premise, but this is more than just another revenge movie: Porter is a tough guy with a moral code, which separates him from the usual criminal underworld. Porter appears as cocky, smooth talking bad guy who the audience roots for, due to Gibson's likable Hollywood charm. The roster of characters is what makes Payback so ...  Read the complete review

Think of an action film starring Mel Gibson and you think of a bright, funy good guy but in Payback hes not so nice and not so funny, infact for a change Gibson plays a very serious part in this cold and edgy thriller. Here Mel is bad, he hasnt got the time for most people and if they annoy him, they get a bullet in the head or worse. He is a gangster trying to climb the ladder of organised crime and is always in danger of being killed. Mel is Porter, at the start of the film we meet him and Val (Gregg Henry) who are two small time criminals who decide and plan to rob a group of money carriers. They have learnt the money is itself obtained illegally and so if they ...  Read the complete review