Payback **** (1999, Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, Deborah Kara Unger, David Paymer, Bill Duke) – Classic Movie Review 8398

Writer-director Brian Helgeland’s 1999 neo noir crime thriller Payback stars Mel Gibson as tough ex-marine Porter, a hood who is double-crossed and shot in the back by his unfaithful junkie wife Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger) and her sadistic mobster boyfriend Val Resnick (Gregg Henry), who make off with his $70,000 share of a bloody heist.

They leave Porter to die but he survives and recovers to exact revenge and to get his money back – but this is a big problem since Resnick has ingratiated himself back into the protection of The Organisation.

This rock-solid, fast-paced B-movie revenge thriller with an A-movie budget is none other than a remake of John Boorman’s 1967 masterwork Point Blank, this time including much of the explanatory detail of Richard Stark (ie Donald E Westlake)’s book The Hunter, omitted in the original. Though the plot is the same, it feels like an entirely different movie. The character is Parker in Westlake’s series of novels. Jason Statham played him in the 2013 thriller Parker, based on another book in the series.

Payback is an adult entertainment made for grown-ups, and it is tough to the point of gratuitous sadism, with some kinky sex thrown in for good measure, but it is thoroughly convincing and enjoyable. Gibson is satisfyingly cast against type and enjoying himself as the none-too-nice anti-hero character formerly portrayed by Lee Marvin.

Also in the cast are David Paymer, Kris Kristofferson, William Devane, James Coburn, Maria Bello, Bill Duke, John Glover, Lucy Liu, Jack Conley.

It runs 100 minutes and 90 minutes in the Director’s Cut. The restoration of the Director’s Cut took place in 2005. Most of the original elements of the film were not preserved, so film editor Kevin Stitt and Helgeland had to use what was preserved from the original film stock.  The blue tint of the theatrical version was removed for more vivid colour tones and Helgeland asked Scott Stambler to write a new score, which was recorded in late February 2006.

Helgeland was fired from the film two days after he won his Academy Award for LA Confidential (1997) and a third of the film was re-shot, resulting in a delay of nearly year as Gibson was making Lethal Weapon 4. Kris Kristofferson’s character of the main villain was added after Helgeland left. The reshoot director is unknown, but may be production designer John Myhre or film director Paul Abascal.

Boorman said the script reminded him of one that Lee Marvin had thrown out of his window in fury at its awfulness, and that a young Mel Gibson must have been passing by and picked it up.

Twenty years later, Gibson was back on this kind of form and in this kind of film with Dragged Across Concrete.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8398

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Lee Marvin in John Boorman’s 1967 masterwork Point Blank.