Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
10/19/08
Truth
be told, the vast majority of movies are mediocre, but there are different
kinds of mediocrity. There's the movie that's content to simply chug
along at a mildly entertaining pace and keep us diverted until its' running
time is up. There's the movie that wants to be great, and sometimes
is, but just can't consistently fire on more than a few cylinders.
The movie that's mostly bad, but contains a few scenes or performances
that are really special. And then there's Blockbuster Mediocrity:
that special product of trying to make the most possible viewers happy
that pretty much guarantees that very few people will truly love the finished
product. Max Payne is such a movie, a 90 minute bundle of
plot threads (a few of which seem to exist only to generate footage for
the trailer) providing a reason for Mark Wahlberg to kill a whole lotta
people, all of whom may or may not be bad. As such, the movie's a
mess. But if you liked that trailer, you'll probably like the movie
enough to get by. It's the kind of Killing Machine Hero on a Mission
movie I generally enjoy, complete with a pretty potent vein of (probably)
unintentional campiness. It's a pretty cynical way to mildly entertain
an audience, but, you know, whatever works...
Max
Payne (Mark Wahlberg) used to have a happy life with his loving wife Michelle
(Marianthi Evans) and their child. But that all changed the day he
came home to find them murdered. He killed two of the three assailants,
and has spent the last three years searching for the other. When
a Russian partygoer (Olga Kurylenko) with a winged tattoo steals Max's
wallet before turning up dead, he finally catches the scent. It seems
that she is just one of many with that tattoo taking a popular new drug
who've died while fleeing hallucinations of mysterious winged creatures.
And that drug? Seems it was being developed by the pharmaceutical
company for whom Michelle worked when she died. Other players in
this game include the girl's sister Mona (Mila Kunis), some kind of badass
who tells us “You know what I do for a living” even though we don't; Internal
Affairs cop Jim Bravura (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), who's convinced Max
is behind the murders; BB Hensley (Beau Bridges), the former partner of
Max's dad, who's now head of security for that pharmaceutical company;
freaked out middle manager Jason Colvin (Chris O'Donnell), who's about
to crack under the weight of his secrets; and drugged-up maniac Jack Lupino
(Amaury Nolasco), whose appearance in a secret company video will explain
it all. And once all the secrets are out, God save anyone who knows
anyone who had any connection to Michelle's death: Max Payne is out
for blood.
Watching
Max Payne's trailer, you'd probably expect there to be a pretty
heavy supernatural element to the movie, but the Valkyries seen by the
drug users are nothing but hallucinations, and the names of God and The
Devil are simply tossed around by self-important crooks. In its'
heart, the movie is a modernized riff on those uber-violent action movies
of the mid-80's, when Norris, Stallone or Schwarzenegger would unleash
their wrath on legions of hired goons until they'd tracked down the man
who killed, kidnapped or otherwise molested their loved ones. Wahlberg
isn't at the peak of his talents here, but he is so well cast that it doesn't
make much difference: one look at him and I pity any fool who gets
in his way. In fact, I pity anyone in the same zip code, because
I don't think there's ever been a movie character who shot so long before
asking questions. Watch the timing of the action scenes: the
moment he sees anyone in his peripheral vision anywhere there might be
crooks, he kills them. The movie never tells us any of these guys
aren't guilty, but... wow, Max Payne is one trigger-happy dude!
Across
the board, director John Moore opts for over-caffeination, playing scenes
so straight, so tough, and so fast that fans of macho action movies should
have a lot of fun laughing either at or with the proceedings. Extras
get really mad about things going on in the foreground: check out
the hoot of a scene where Max walks through the “Police Station” (so labeled
outside the building) toward the office of his ex-partner (Donal Logue)
as everyone he passes stands in shock and horror and joins in with a little
slow-moving lynch mob trailing behind him. Or a small but delightful
moment where Max enters a diner, walking right past the “Please Wait to
Be Seated” sign into a booth with BB until a waitress swoops down upon
the booth and practically threatens him with coffee only to be similarly
brushed off. It's a little thing, but it brings to mind the ferocity
with which Max must do his grocery shopping and pay his taxes and tickled
the hell out of me. Genre fans will also appreciate a little gem
of a scene where Max and Mona visit a tattoo artist (Stephen R. Hart) who
seems to have waited all day to tell them everything they need to know
about Valkyries, right down to having a book on the subject sitting right
next to him.
This
is Moore's fourth Major Studio movie, and all of them (Behind Enemy
Lines, Flight of the Phoenix and The Omen are the others)
have a similar commitment to elaborately staged mediocrity (The Omen
also shares Max's commitment to pumping up the trailer with misleading
asides). And there's no question that Max Payne is elaborately
staged: the slo-mo shootouts are really well done, and the little
touches of ambiance (relentless snow, a truly chilling dip in the freezing
harbor of the Unnamed City) set a great post-Matrix noir mood.
Beau Throne's screenplay takes the narrative through-line of the Payne
video game (at least as described to be on Wikipedia) and bogs it down
with extra layers of conspiracy and nonsense. The complicity of Big
Pharm is a nice touch, but so much energy is expended on setting up Lupino
as an invincible “devil” only to have him dispatched with laughable ease.
And it's hard to find a corner of the various interlocking conspiracies
in play that really makes any sense when you consider every other corner.
And don't get me started on the selective nature of the drug's dangerous
addictiveness.
The
cast does what it needs to do: little more, little less. Kunis
has one of those characters who shows up whenever the script needs her
and then disappears at times when any actual person would insist on hanging
around, so it's an achievement that she always seems to believe in what
she's doing. Ludacris can't really straddle a credibility gap in
which his character goes from being totally against Max to totally in his
corner, but before that swing, he's effective at holding one of those movie
Internal Affairs grudges. O'Donnell is actually very good in his
few scenes, giving the movie's best dramatic performance. Nolasco
oozes evil and sweat in equal measure, making the paper tiger status of
his character a disappointment. But the supporting cast's biggest
asset is Beau Bridges, who does a glorious job matching his own dubious
morality against the ferocity of Max's vengeance. I have a great
admiration for an actor knowing exactly what the purpose of his role in
the movie is, and whether he's conning, lording over, or fleeing frantically
from our hero, he's always pitched just right to get the desired response.
You
may be reading all this and wondering “So, what's with the three stars?”
but I have to say that this kind of red meat campy action spectacular IS
my idea of a good time. Max Payne could and should have been
better. It should have invested me in Max's sadness and tragedy and
provided a believable corporate/government conspiracy for him to rage against.
Maybe it even intends to do those things, but instead, it emerges as thrilling
empty calories for the action movie fan with a silly edge that borders
on self-parody. I do not recommend this mediocre movie to non-genre
fans. But if you wanna watch Mark Wahlberg run around in slow motion
shooting at everything that moves... well, so do I. |
