Man, that's just MEAN. That's MEAN, man. (Payback (DVD))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Payback (DVD)
Date:	06/03/05 (155 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting characters and dialogue, Great soundtrack, Mel is mean, man.

Disadvantages: None.

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 his money leads him into the heart of a ruthless, citywide crime syndicate called "The Outfit".

Porter (voice over): "Crooked cops. Do they come in any other way? If I'd been just a little dumber, I could have joined the force myself."

Gathering enemies and hangers on along the way, including the above referenced crooked cops, Porter finds that it's not easy getting people to simply hand over $70,000. People want a slice of his cash and even worse, his old partner has told the Oriental gentlemen that porter was responsible for their loss. Porter will have to go some to get rid of this interest before he can finally get his hands on his cash.

Payback is filmed in an interesting style – the colours are washed out and with the voice over, it has an almost film noir feel to it. As stated earlier, it's a very brutal film. People are killed in direct ways with quite a bit of violence, but the directness and brutality are part of what makes this film work for me. Despite the fact that quite a large proportion of the film was changed (the plotline with Kris Kristofferson was added after shooting had wrapped), the film manages to stay consistent and exciting, despite a new director (Brian Helgeland was replaced). The pace is maintained throughout the film with the reasonably short 100 minute running time and the directness of the plot, and this works well.

A lot of the humour comes from the main plot device of Porter's $70,000. Each time Porter makes contact with a member of The Outfit, they question the sanity of going to all this trouble for $130,000 to be wearily corrected by Porter that it's actually only $70,000.

Porter: "And tell him it's $70,000!"
Fairfax (disbelieving): "$70,000? Hell, my suits are worth more than that!"

Performances all round are excellent, with perhaps the exception of Maria Bello who plays love interest Rosie. She seemed quite lifeless, which was very noticeable given that everyone else was interesting to watch. Mel Gibson's anti-hero role was a lot darker and harder than I was used to seeing, but he never seemed to be out of place playing such a hard case. I really liked William Devane and James Coburn as The Outfits main players, Carter and Fairfax respectively. Both are actors I like a lot and the scene between Porter and Fairfax is easily my favourite from the film. Kris Kristofferson's Bronson, the head of The Outfit also menaces convincingly, especially towards the very end of the film. Lucy Liu also provides laughs as the dominatrix.

The dialogue is crisp, quick and funny. I don't think it's in the same league as early Tarantino, but matches the pace of the film. Porter's voiceovers are a good device for showing that there's more to the man, even if it is a dry wit, and also relieving the tension during some of the darker moments.

The whole film is rather vague regarding when it's set. The main look of the film indicates a modern day setting , but the lack of any real modern "gadgets", like mobile phones (all phones in the film are rotary dialers, and I believe all the cars are pre-1980, though I could be wrong in this) would suggest earlier. The soundtrack also reflects this ambiguity. It consists almost entirely of old timers – Dean Martin, especially, but also including Jimi Hendrix, Al Jolson, James Brown amongst others.

Overall, I really liked "Payback" – the plot wasn't complicated, the characters were interesting and funny and it was interesting from the start right through to the finish. There's plenty of violence and bad language with occasional drug and sex references, so that means an '18' certificate, but it's well worth watching.

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