miker:
"Just watched Mel Gibson in Payback. Fantastic movie. Loved
it. Of course, it spoiled reading the book, but I can live
with that."
I thought the movie sucked.
Here's what I posted on it a few years ago when it came out
in theaters:
The Hunter/Point Blank/Payoff is one of my favorite
hardboiled novels. And I will allow that the film Payback
probably sticks closer to the book's plot than Point Blank
did. That said, I could not stand Payback and loved Point
Blank. First of all, Lee Marvin's stoic determination seemed
to me to capture the character of Parker better (this movie
was one of the first pieces of evidence in my theory that Lee
Marvin was the coolest man alive; the title has now passed to
Chow Yun Fat [with Clive Owen now closing in]). I found Mel
Gibson's retread buddy movie smart ass comments (without even
a buddy to say them to; I would guess this is what was added
to make Mel more "human") annoying, undercutting and making
light of some disturbing violence -- if you are going to have
disturbing violence, like the torture scene, let it stand for
what it is, it should leave a bad taste, not be wiped clean
by "I stubbed my toe," or whatever the inane comment was;
Tarantino knew this in Pulp Fiction. I also found the camp
attitude of Payback annoying, the Starsky and Hutch set,
dressing and attitude. The movie would only have been
improved if Antonio Fargas (Huggy Bear) had walked around a
corner, as I kept expecting him to. Worst of all, though, I
found the movie wildly inconsistent, especially in its
treatment of Parker. If Porter was smart enough to get out of
the many perilous situations in which he found himself, he
would not have been dumb enough to get into them in the first
place.
As I said, Point Blank plays much looser with the book. The
possibility that Walker might be an avenging angel, much like
Clint in High Plains Drifter, and the existential stuff is
purely young Boorman. But I thought the latter, at least, fit
well with what is essentially a work about work, what it is
to be a professional.
[I later found out that there is supposed to be an earlier
cut of the movie floating around. It is said to feature a
harder, less glib Gibson. Unfortunately, Gibson supposedly
thought he came off as too much of a bad guy and forced
changes to make him seem nicer, more sympathetic. I'd love to
get my hands on a copy of that other version.]
Mark
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