‘Max Payne’ Review

Reviewing ‘Max Payne’ is by far one of the most difficult hands I’ve ever been dealt in my write up days, and I’m sure it’ll take more than a few trips to completely settle the final score, but for now, I can only speak of it on two separate levels for two different audiences. As a typical vengeance-driven assault of bullet chaos, it doesn’t really fail on the basis of non-stop action (unless of course you’re thirsty for blood); but for those who were devoted to the video game, and fell in love with the title character’s deep story of personal vendetta… it pretty much shoots itself in the head. The “why” is settled in just a few minutes, and after that, the guns do all the talking.

Following the brutal murder of his family and partner, Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) leaves his badge at home and sets out on a quest to find those responsible. Teaming with Mona Sax (Mila Kunis), another revenge-seeking assassin, the two of them go on a rampage as they venture into a criminal underworld full of mobsters, drug dealers, and more corruption than either of them could’ve ever imagined.

I remember one of the things that made playing the game so phenomenal was how the creators were able to use storytelling to capture an emotion that enabled gamers to connect with the character beyond just how many bad guys they could shoot at each checkpoint. While it was fun to use matrix slow motion to your advantage, you still cared about what was going to happen next. And more than that, you actually looked forward to reading the next chapter of Payne’s journey. This film has but one chapter lasting about 100 minutes, and its told by the bullets more so than the people. And as fast as it may go to avoid boredom, the lack of blood will certainly make die hard gamers feel robbed.

Okay, now that we’ve established the adaptation disloyalty, I have to shift gears completely and admit that as hard as it was to see the original source get dumped on, the movie itself still works in terms of entertainment. And as clichéd as some of the shots may appear, director John Moore does manage to capture the same dark atmosphere that existed in the digital backgrounds of the game. The sky is black, a winter snowstorm rages on with no end in sight, and cold rain falls on the characters as they trudge along the dark alleys. It may be just a catchy production design, but anyone who understands the power of silence can easily comprehend the symbolism of such a gloomy environment.

Even when he was talking to a plastic bush in ‘The Happening,’ I still trusted Mark Wahlberg to bring an A-game performance as he usually does in every role, and judging by his resume, ‘Max Payne’ is one of the most engaging roles the former rapper has ever pursued. Give Sgt. Dignam (Wahlberg’s character in ‘The Departed) a bunch of guns, cut out all the f-bombs, and the result is a man on the edge who will stop at nothing to bring the guilty to justice.

He looks like Payne, he talks like Payne, and when the going gets tough, he uses every ounce of “Payne” and emotion to stand up to the most insurmountable odds. Simply put… Mark Wahlberg IS Max Payne, and everything he does in this movie will easily remind gamers of why they fell in love with the character in the first place. The numerous hallucinations of mysterious winged creatures is just icing on the cake… until we meet Jack Lupino (Amaury Nolasco) who is completely real and about as terrifying as the monsters in Payne’s dreams.

As Marky Mark shines in the dark (how ironic does that sound?) realm of Payne, Mila Kunis (Yes, it’s Jackie from That ’70s Show) only brings a lackluster job to her side of the story. Maybe she was overshadowed too much by Wahlberg’s immense work, but because this one movie tried combining plot points from two games, a lot of the reasons behind their cooperation don’t really seem to matter that much. After every big shootout (and there are plenty), I said to myself several times, “Payne to the Max!… oh wait, where’s Mona?”

I’ve always admitted to enjoying a crazy fun time at the theater, and ‘Max Payne’ is quite frankly a guilty pleasure for the most part (only without the ultra-violence) with its rigorous stunt work and endless gunfights, but I know in my gut that if the storyline of the video game had been addressed more and used as a “time out” technique to put a pace on the action, this film would’ve been masterful.

Wahlberg’s dead on portrayal certainly gives the overall product a great deal of redemption along with the vivid set designs, but for the most part, Marky Mark is (figuratively speaking) carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders here. He can scratch off the “crappening” embarrassment of working with M. Night Shyamalan this summer, but by next summer, I highly doubt too many viewers will remember that this happened.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 24 2008. Filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry