Payback

No more Mr. Nice Guy. A bombastic neo-noir where the cast is unforgettable and on point. Brilliant one-liners and a perfectly constructed ending (one of the few cases where the studio’s intervention improved the movie, which I can say after watching Helgeland’s director cut Payback: Straight Up – that one simply seemed weaker…) I will always enjoy revisiting this one! This is one of the films you always want to come back to. Five stars! (04/25/2018)

Helgeland managed a fairly decent mix of the gritty dude, Lethal Weapon, and the Tarantino crude gangster poetics, in which brutality is sort of danced, humorous, casual. Payback is no directorial opus magni - it is a rather routine film, which owes most of its great moments to the script and to the excellent Mel Gibson, who capitalized on his many years of experience in detective Riggs' skin, only to stand on the opposite side of the barricade. Thanks to him the incredibly stubborn thief Porter becomes a character almost humorously dangerous, who, with raw willfulness, walks through the reinforced concrete barricade for the smallest thing. The central character is the central value of Payback. We otherwise do not find anything particularly original or memorable here, everything works for the benefit of the whole and the result is a quality gangster film from the rough school that delights even with its decent ending. (11/29/2005)

Mel Gibson did a hell of a job in this one. He’s tough, cool, rough, his mouth is full of great lines and he’s about to finish what he’d started. This is one hell of a payback. It actually doesn’t matter how Mel is going to go about is, what’s important is that he shoots enough bullets and that there are tons of dead bodies around him. It’s as simple as that. It might be a bit of a wannabe cool over-filtered action ride, but other than that it’s a wacky movie in the vein of Tarantino, which will keep you entertained for those almost two hours. (02/28/2014)

A rakish, hardheaded gangster played by Mel Gibson, the pretty blonde he cares about, a couple of dumb corrupt cops, a pile of violence, some sado-masochism and, mainly, a dozen goons whose “coolness” increases as they gradually get to know each other, from the biggest bungler to the biggest, toughest and most uncompromising boss. And all of this wrapped up in nostalgic, grey-blue camera filters and hellishly black humour. A delicious treat! (08/10/2002)

When it premiered, I gave Payback 4 stars and I must admit with a certain blush that it charmed me in its own way - and I am not a fan of the genre or even Mel Gibson. It is a film made with ease and it is straightforward, simple, genre-pure, and a cool ride where the pace never slackens and the usual clichés are presented tastefully and with a pervasive sense of irony. On the other hand, as the years went by and I read the book, it impressed me much more with its darkness, complexity, and ambiguity. Besides, it is impossible not to notice how the film approaches the character of the violent, murderous, and thieving protagonist, presenting him to the viewer as a likable rascal. This story is hard to believe, and I left behind my teenage years when I would have identified with this portrayal a long time ago. Overall impression: 60%. (05/27/2020)