The most fun you can have without a controller in your hands.
Image courtesy of IMPawards.com
Director: John Moore
Notable Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Chris O’Donnell, Donal Logue
How cliché is it to offer Max Payne the compliment that it is pretty good for a movie based on a video game? How about suggesting it is pretty good for a crappy film noir with supernatural elements? Because that about sums it up.
Like any good gritty cop flick, Max Payne introduces its protagonist right before he dies and then flashes back to how it all happened. Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is a detective working in the cold case division of a New York police department. Max found his way down there (it seems Cold Case is always hidden away in some forgotten corner of the precinct) some years ago after the murder of his wife and baby went unsolved.
Since that time, Max has been pouring over every criminal’s file that comes his way in an attempt to unlock any hidden evidence that might give him a name, a motive, something. Once Max leaves the office to follow a new lead, it is not readily apparent that the movie has not flashed back even further, he meets a beautiful Russian temptress with a peculiar tattoo on her arm; one he has seen before.
Natasha (Olga Kurylenko) has something to tell Max about here tattoo, “but not here”, so they head back to his apartment where she shows as much flesh as possible for a PG-13 movie based on a rated M video game. But being the good downtrodden widower he is, Max cannot be seduced. He wants information and he wants it now! Since Natasha offers him none, she is sent away and then mysteriously murdered in the alley.
Max becomes the number one suspect for Natasha’s murder case, as well as the pseudo-reopen murder case of his wife, when his wallet is found at the scene of the crime. The problem is further compounded when his old partner, who has found a connection between the two murders, is found dead in Max’s apartment. Of course, the ridiculous premise gets ramped up tenfold as well.
It turns out Max’s wife was working on an experimental drug used to make soldiers better in combat. The problem, one that apparently only she cared about, is that the drug is highly addictive and the side effects (which include seeing demons and fiery visions of hell, hence the supernatural aspect of Max Payne) are seen in all but one percent of those tested. Because Max’s wife knew this, she had to be eliminated.
As Max gets closer to finding out why exactly his wife was killed, and the bodies start to pile up as much as possible in a PG-13 movie based on a rated M video game, the nature of the ubiquitous wing tattoos is revealed. It seems their only purpose is to symbolize the demonic/angelic hallucinations had by the bearers of said tattoos. That information isn’t particularly relevant, but a great deal of the film is spent on it, so it bears repeating.
One thing the film does not spend a great deal of time on is developing or utilizing its secondary characters. It is no accident that Mila Kunis’ character, the sister of Natasha, has not been mentioned until now. Every time I almost completely forgot about her she would pop up for a random, useless scene. Ditto for Donal Logue as Max’s old partner and Chris O’Donnell as the only employee of drug company Aesir with any conscience whatsoever.
There is a germ of a good idea in Max Payne, and Mark Wahlberg finally gets to play a badass superhero type, but neither does anything to redeem the film. It seems Mortal Kombat gets to spend a little more time on top of the “movie adaptations of video games” mountain.
