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Action, Drama, Crime, Thriller 100 min R
Rotten Tomatoes56%Metacritic46IMDb
Get ready to root for the bad guy.
With friends like these, who needs enemies? That's the question bad guy Porter is left asking after his wife and partner steal his heist money and leave him for dead -- or so they think. Five months and an endless reservoir of bitterness later, Porter's partners and the crooked cops on his tail learn how bad payback can be.
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Relentless, bleak, unpretentious and plot-driven.
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Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Taste Buds's numbers.
_**Amusing neo-noir in Chicago with Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry and Maria Bello**_ After a heist with an Asian gang, a no-nonsense man (Mel Gibson) is left for dead by his accomplices (Gregg Henry & Deborah Kara Unger) in the underbelly of the Big City, but he unexpectedly recovers and wants vengeance, not to mention his $70,000. Maria Bello, Lucy Liu, William Devane, Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn and other notables are on hand. "Payback" (1999) is modern film noir with colors so muted it’s almost B&W (although I hear the Director’s Cut heightens them). It’s a remake of Coburn’s “Point Blank” (1967) and is ‘hip’ & entertaining in an amusing Tarantino kind of way, although it’s nowhere close to the greatness of “Pulp Fiction” (1994) or even “Jackie Brown” (1997). However, my wife liked it more than me and gave it 7/10, but then she’s a fan of Gibson. The film runs 1 hour, 40 minutes, and was shot mainly in Chicago, along with Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles with studio stuff done in Burbank. There’s also an establishing shot of Manhattan. GRADE: B-
Read the whole review on TMDBIndestructible Gibson in grim and gritty telling of The Hunter. This is not an out and out remake of John Boorman's 1967 offering Point Blank, the structure is different from the 67 film, and where Point Blank is a dark psychological thriller that is rightly regarded as being towards the top of the neo-noir tree, this Brian Helgeland directed film really should be seen as a different interpretation of Donald E. Westlake's novel The Hunter. Mel Gibson plays tough as nails thief Porter, who is double crossed, shot, and then left for dead by his wife Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger) and his partner in crime Val Resnick (Gregg Henry). We are then taken on a dark journey as Porter sets out to reclaim the $70.000 that he was shot and almost killed for. He wants no more, no less than what he is owed, and he literally will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Including taking on the Chicago mob organisation known as The Outfit. Payback is a mean and violent movie, it is unrelenting in its willingness to keep nastiness at the top of the story. The film is full of flawed and vile people, even Porter himself, the closest we have to a (anti) hero has badness coursing through his veins, he is a dislik
Read the whole review on TMDBAn underrated crime noir that somehow snuck it's way into the overcrowded 90s. With phrases like, "expected horizontal refreshment", you know this is going to be good.
Read the whole review on TMDBChecking availability…
Companions we picked from the closest works, and how to take them.
Closest on the same fourteen dimensions, from everything scored on Taste Buds. Other media included when they land close.
Recommendations from TMDB. Opening one adds it to Taste Buds
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“Is this Brian Helgeland's best work?”
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45 profiled raters. Loved most by The Provocateurs; disliked most by The Formalists.
If you loved this film, the television, the book, the music, the game.
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