Max Payne

PLOT:

In New York City, detective Max Payne is a three-year veteran in the Cold Case unit. He is consumed with investigating and finding the murderer of his wife, Michelle and infant son. Trevor, Max’s snitch, supplies him with information that leads him to three drug addicts in an empty train station. They attempt to hold up Max in a bathroom; instead Max interrogates one of them about his family’s murder, with no results. Next he visits Trevor’s apartment where Natasha Sax takes an interest in him. Natasha and her sister Mona Sax get into an argument and Natasha disappears. Max goes looking for her near a back room where people are using the drug “Valkyr” and is silently confronted by Jack Lupino, but Natasha takes him away. Max noticed Natasha’s tattoos and wants information so he invites her back to his apartment. However, after Natasha tries to seduce him and makes insensitive comments about his wife, Max kicks her out.

The next morning Natasha turns up dead with Max’s wallet at the crime scene. Max becomes the prime suspect with his old partner Alex Balder on the case. Alone in his office, Alex notices the tattoo on Natasha’s arm is similar to one found in the case file of Max’s wife. Alex tries to contact Max, but with no luck he quickly leaves for Max’s apartment. Max arrives to find the door is ajar and his place a mess with Alex dead inside. Someone attacks Max and knocks him unconscious.

Max wakes up in a hospital beside his trusted friend BB Hensley, his father’s former partner in the NYPD. BB is now head of security of the pharmaceutical company Aesir Corporation. Max decides to pay his respects to Alex but is kicked out by his upset wife, Christa. While being questioned by Lieutenant Jim Bravura of Internal Affairs, Max storms out and searches Alex’s desk, finding Owen Green’s name in Natasha’s case file. Later, Max is confronted by Mona who assumes Max killed her sister but is persuaded to team up with Max and find the true killer. Max and Mona find Owen Green but can’t save him as he falls out of the building to his death.

Max and Mona visit Natasha’s tattoo parlor. The tattoo artist tells them Natasha’s tattoo represents the wings of a Valkyrie which in Norse mythology is for protection in battle. Max takes some of Michelle’s belongings out of storage and comes across documents from the Aesir Corporation, the company she worked for. Taking some of the Aesir documents, Max meets BB at a diner and demands the name of Michelle’s old supervisor, Jason Colvin.

After interrogating Jason, Max learns that Michelle’s death had something to do with a government contract to create super soldiers. Few subjects showed results from the addictive drug while the remaining went insane, thus shutting down the project. Jason agrees to testify for protection, but as they try to escape, Aesir security forces, heavily-armed, kill Jason. Max escapes the gunfight and shows the video to Mona at her place. It explains the Valkyr project with a testimonial by Jack Lupino where he explains that on the drug he feels invincible with no side effects. Max goes to Jack’s hideout, Ragna Rok, and is losing to Jack when BB arrives and kills Jack. While escaping Max is knocked unconscious.

BB tells Max that he is selling Valkyr and that he killed Michelle and her baby because she inadvertently came across documents that incriminated him. He plans to drown Max in the river with Valkyr in his pocket, hoping to make it look like a drug-induced suicide. Max escapes before he can be tied to the weight, and jumps into the icy river to avoid being shot. He swims to shore and to prevent hypothermia consumes both vials of Valkyr, transforming into a super soldier with visions of Valkyries. Max follows BB back to the Aesir building and confronts him on the building’s heliport where he shoots BB dead and then is surrounded by the police.

After the film credits Max is shown arriving at a bar where he meets with Mona. She shows him a newspaper article about Aesir’s stock prices rising, next to a photo of Aesir CEO Nicole Horne.

REVIEW:

I’ve never played the Max Payne video game, so I’m not too familiar with the source material, however, I have heard and read that this film varies so far from it, that it is almost not recognizable.

Mark Wahlberg (remember when he was Marky Mark?) is pretty good here, but he tends to relish these roles where gets to be the brooding type. Still, I wish we could have gotten a little more personality out of him.

Mila Kunis is surprising in this film. Like many of you, I’m used to seeing her in comdic roles such as That 70’s Show and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. One would never think of her as an action star, but if this role is any indication, we may be seeing her in similar roles in the future.

Beua Bridge and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges (no relation) round out a pretty good cast, but neither’s character really takes off until past the halfway point in the film. At that point, as slow as this movie goes, you’ve all but lost interest until the climax.

From my understanding, the angels, or demons, or whatever they were are only mentioned in the video game, so the fact that they play such a integral role in the film defies all logic. The buildup of Lupino as the major villain was fine and dandy until we get to the final confrontation between the two, only to learn that someone else is behind it all.

This is a pretty good action/crime drama film. It’s not the greatest, though. I think the fact that it goes so far away from the source material is the reason for it’s lack of success. Now that I’ve said that, if this was an original idea, it would be a hit, even if it does seem to be a mix of The Punisher and Constatine. Not a bad combination, but the script and story could have been better executed. All in all, you’ll enjoy this film if you’re a fan of the game or into this genre, but keep in mind, this is not for your kids.

3 out of 5 stars