Max Payne *** (2008, Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Olga Kurylenko, Ludacris, Chris O’Donnell) – Classic Movie Review 783

‘I don’t believe in heaven. I believe in pain. I believe in fear. I believe in death.’ Mmmm…

Muscle man tough guy Mark Wahlberg is ideally cast in 2008 as Max Payne, a NYPD detective obsessed with catching the man who killed his wife and baby. Getting himself transferred to the police cold case department, Max has plenty of time to conduct his own investigation, which takes him deep into the city’s underworld.

He meets a female assassin, Mona Sax (Mila Kunis, the romantic highlight of Forgetting Sarah Marshall), whose sister Natasha (Olga Kurylenko – Bond girl Camille in Quantum of Solace) may have been terminated by the killer…

Sam Lake’s popular video game is realised in high style as a ‘neo film noir’ by director John Moore (whose last film before this was a surprisingly decent remake of The Omen), and it’s souped up into overdrive with awesome action, amazing shadowy photography and astounding visual effects. There are also meaty roles for Beau Bridges as Max’s father’s former partner and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges as an Internal Affairs cop investigating Max.

On the minus side, the villain’s ludicrously obvious, poor Chris O’Donnell is abused in a pathetic, passive role as Jason Colvin and the film is downed by a dreary drugs plot that kills a promising Constantine-style scenario. And, of course, there are far, far too many dodgy big guns blazing in a contemporary American setting. At times it’s nothing short of a bloodbath.

But, all in all, this is very stylish and exciting, a good vehicle for Wahlberg and not too bad at all for a movie based on a video game. A short scene at the end credits hints at a sequel is planned – but maybe its $40million US box-office take (plus £2,268,900 in the UK) isn’t good enough for that. On the other hand, its well-spent $35million budget isn’t huge.