Payback (1999)

Director: Brian Helgeland
Writer: Screenplay: Brian Helgeland, Terry Hayes Novel ("The Hunter"): Donald E. Westlake
Cast: Mel Gibson, Maria Bello, Gregg Henry, David Paymer, Lucy Liu, Kris Kristofferson, Bill Duke, Deborah Kara Unger
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller

Payback starts out with an interesting scene where our protagonist, Porter, is getting medical help from the sleazy kind of doctor, and from there writer and director Brian Helgeland (at the time best known for co-writing the screenplay of L.A. Confidential) takes us on an unlikely revenge-ride throughout the underworld. What begins with revenge against his wife and his former partner in crime, soon enough brings him up the ladder chasing his cut of that robbery leading to all this trouble.

Gibson isn't half bad as Porter, but the entire Porter character is a little too much. Willis might have pulled it off even as extreme, but Gibson doesn't. For the better part there's Henry as the sadistic ex-partner in crime Resnick, and to make it even better we got Maria Bello playing the part of Rosie, an expensive prostitute Porter once used to drive. I've admired Bello for quite a while, and now looking back at her work 11 years ago I still have very few problems understanding my own admiration.

The very best you can say about Payback, is it doesn't try to be anything more or less than it is. It's a violent revenge movie climbing the criminal ladder, and as such it works pretty well. While some scenes are taken a little too far making Porter into one tough son of a bitch, as purely popcorn entertainment we swallow it. The rest? Fuck it! Payback never claims to deliver anything else.