In Brian Helgeland's new director's cut of the film, Mel Gibson
portrays Porter, a career criminal bent on revenge after his
partners in a street heist pump metal into him and take off with
his $70,000 cut. Bad move, thugs. Because if you plan to
double-cross Porter, you'd better make sure he's dead. Porter
resurfaces, wading into a lurid urban underworld of syndicate
kingpins, cops on the take, sniveling informants and deadly
gangs. Porter wants his money back. And the way he sets out to
get is assures that, from beginning to heart pounding end,
Payback pays off big.
.com
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There were reasons writer-director Brian Helgeland's cut of
Payback was dismissed by distributors Para and Warner Bros.,
then heavily re- and re-tooled by Mel Gibson's production
company, Icon Entertainment. Those reasons are explained in
detail by Gibson, Helgeland, and others in the special features
of Payback: The Director's Cut (Special Collector's Edition).
Among them: Helgeland's version was too dark. America wasn't
ready in 1999 to see Gibson play an unapologetic, 1970s-style
antihero who might not get exactly what he wants. Audiences
didn't have the patience to wait for answers to their story
questions. A dog dies. (A big no-no.) All of these comments make
sound, practical sense. But here's the bottom line: Helgeland's
cut, perhaps even a bit more disciplined and taut (according to
Paybacks editor, Kevin Stitt) than it was in 1999, is a serious
movie with an tone and logic that makes the film look the
way it was meant to look: as a neo-noir film for adults. The
theatrical release of Payback, by contrast, was and is silly and
vulgar, self-sabotaging, pointlessly vicious, and perversely
jaunty. It is very much like--deliberately like--the Lethal
Weapon series. The Directors Cut makes clear thats not at all
what Helgeland had in mind.
Kudos to Gibson and Icon for giving Helgeland a chance to
restore his film and get it out on this DVD. But a look at both
versions (this disc does not include the theatrical cut)
back-to-back can certainly make one's head spin. Icons revisions
in the original release show little faith in a contemporary
audiences ability to discern much about a story or mood or
character from spare but telling details. That film relies on
crass swatches of voiceover narration, cute inserts, added
scenes, and hipster tunes on the soundtrack. All of that was
designed to tell an audience how to feel rather than encourage a
cinematic experience encountered with an open heart and mind.
Worst of all is a specious third act nakedly built around an
obligatory Gibson-gets-tortured sequence, leading the film to a
lazy, comforting conclusion. The Directors Cut eschews all of
that. Gibsons character, Porter (based on the central character
in the novel "The Hunter," written by Donald E. Westlake under
the pseudonym Richard Stark), is a man returning from the brink
of death with nothing but his identity and the memory of
something (an almost-nominal a of money) taken from him. His
iron determination, his capacity for brutality and inducing fear,
and his survival instinct make him anything but warm and cuddly.
It's his few ties to the past--especially an interrupted
relationship with a call girl (Maria Bello)--that humanize him.
One doesn't have to like Porter; one just accepts him and follows
his journey in an honest, unmitigated fashion. Thats exactly
what Helgeland does, and his cleaner, leaner, smarter cut is
instantly rewarding for its uncompromising, undistracted
toughness. Special features include a documentary about the
films history, and a wonderful interview with Westlake. --Tom
Keogh