Payback
(1999)
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 Hour and 41 Minutes
Reviewer: Jones
Grade: B+"G.S.W. That's what the hospitals call it. Gun shot wound. The doctor has to report it to the police. That makes it hard for guys in my line to get what I'd call quality healthcare."
These are the words of a man having alcohol poured on his back, so that some flunky can remove two bullets from the man's back. His name is Porter and he is pissed. Mel Gibson brings him to surly life like no one else can.
After the rousing backroom medical institution introduction we are treated to a montage of scenes that show that we are dealing with a dyed in the wool conman, and you'll love him for it. Mel looks like a real low-life piece of crap during these scenes and I must say that I love it.
He has the look of a man who would be unhinged if it wasn't such hard work. Porter is a man who has been double crossed and, like most anyone who finds themselves at the short end of the stick in a situation such as this, is not happy about it.
The double crossing is done by a guy named Val Resnick and Porter's wife, who have needs for the money that don't include Porter. Val needs the cash to worm his way back into The Syndicate, which is the city's proprietor's of organized crime and the wife needs to have a steady flow of heroin. So they shoot Porter and leave him for dead. Wrong move fools. Last time I checked, that was Mel Gibson that you just shot and Mel doesn't go away easily. The total haul from the heist was $140,000 and Porter wants his cut, which was $70,000. This becomes a great source of humor for the duration of the film.
Porter is not amused and is back in town looking to collect on what is rightfully his, or as rightfully his as anything can be that is stolen. He finds his wife, fried out of her brains and answers the door to find her dealer on the other side of it. Porter uses the necessary means to derive the information he desires from the punk and finds himself looking for a slippery weasel named Arthur Stegman. When he finds Stegman he's up to his ears in crooked cops and heavyset black men with bleeding ears. In grilling Stegman he starts to put a few of the pieces of the puzzle together and things begin to make sense.
This all leads to a rendezvous with a callgirl from his past and a bunch of the higher ups in The Syndicate. It doesn't really matter to Porter, as he will stop at nothing to get his $70,000 back. He will be mean to James Coburn's luggage and maybe even a couple of his toes will look like roast beef, but that won't stop him. You will root for the bad guy, much as the film's tagline says, because you've never seen a bad guy quite like this before.
Written and directed by Brian Helgeland, who also wrote "L.A. Confidential", "Payback" is a gritty no holds barred look at a world in which no decent people live. There are just varying degress of scum on display here and it's a great time waiting to be had. Much like The Man With No Name in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", Porter is the guy you root for by default. In the viewer's eyes, he is the lesser of all the evils. Mel breathes life into this man of limited morals and etched-in-stone principles. Mel is always great to watch, but I don't think I have ever enjoyed any of his performances as much as this one. I think what I like so much about it is that he is playing the role of a piece of shit. Look at him as he leans against that light pole, during the early moments of the film, as he searches for a pocket to pick and tell me that the words "piece of shit" don't leap into your mind. They find their way into my mind every time I watch this movie and it's great! Another reason I find myself committed to this performance over all of Mel's others is that he is pissed right from the get go. There's something great about movies that have their lead character pissed off and out for revenge from the very beginning. "The Outlaw Josey Wales" is another fine example of this sub-genre of film. "You kill my family, I kill you" is what that film says, whereas "Payback" says, "You attempt to kill me and take my money, I kill you and take my money back".
Revenge is the name of the game that "Payback" plays and it does it in a wonderfully fresh, tongue-in-cheek manner that will keep you wanting more. Somewhere amidst the grim, washed out world in which Porter lives there is a great deal of fun and laughs to be had at the expense of both Porter and those on the business end of Porter's Magnum.
If a good old fashioned revenge-laden romp through the criminal world sounds like your idea of a good time, then "Payback" is just what the doctor ordered.