Payback (1999/I)

Director:

Brian Helgeland

Writers:

Donald E. Westlake (novel)
Brian Helgeland (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

5 February 1999 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

No More Mr. Nice Guy

Plot:

Porter is shot by his wife and best friend and is left to die. When he survives he plots revenge.

Plot Keywords:

Money | Revenge | Robbery | Criminal | Prostitute

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Sun. Nov. 22	1:00 PM	TNT
Mon. Nov. 23	2:00 AM	TNT

Cast

Mel Gibson	...	Porter
Gregg Henry	...	Val Resnick
Maria Bello	...	Rosie
David Paymer	...	Arthur Stegman
Bill Duke	...	Det. Hicks
Deborah Kara Unger	...	Mrs. Lynn Porter
John Glover	...	Phil
William Devane	...	Carter
Lucy Liu	...	Pearl (as Lucy Alexis Liu)
Jack Conley	...	Det. Leary
Kris Kristofferson	...	Bronson
Mark Alfa	...	Johnny's Friend #2
Kwame Amoaku	...	Radioman
Justin Ashforth	...	Michael, Bartender #1
Len Bajenski	...	Fairfax Bodyguard #1

Also Known As:

Porter (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, language, and drug and sexual content.

Runtime:

100 min | USA:90 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #36313) | New Zealand:R18 | Iceland:16 | Argentina:13 | Peru:14 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Philippines:R-18 | Hungary:18 | Italy:VM18 (tv rating) | Australia:MA | Belgium:KNT | Finland:K-16 | France:-16 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:18 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:18 (cut) | Canada:16+ (Quebec)

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Icon Entertainment International

Trivia:

Porter's first name is never revealed; even his wife and then subsequent girlfriend call him Porter. When asked about Porter's first name in the movie, Resnick pauses and then replies, "I don't know. He never called himself anything but Porter."

Goofs:

Continuity: The prostitute's hair on her left shoulder when she is talking to Porter in her apartment.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Porter: [voiceover] GSW: that's what the hospitals call it: gunshot wound. Doctor has to report it to the police. That makes it hard for guys in my line to get what I call, quality health care.

Movie Connections:

Spoofs Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995)

Soundtrack:

The Thrill Is Gone

character build

i like this movie mostly for one reason. that reason is because of the way it turns on it's head the normal way in which a character is made into a badass. generally speaking i've noticed in movies that a character can be built up as a badass in a number of ways. most of these include either not showing the character at all (The Usual Suspects, Boba Fett, Hannibal in Silence of The Lambs) or showing them in light that doesn't particularly lend itself to inspiring badass-ness (Clint eastwood in Unforgiven) or minimizing the character's screen bad ass time (Darth Vader, terminator 1,) meanwhile other characters in the periphery will expound on the alleged badness of the character... this is a great strategy for making a character quite memorable. anthony perkin's psycho is still considered a bad dude because so little is known about him until the end. and this technique of leaving it up to the viewer's imagination works well for other things too, such as implied violence, in reservoir dogs, and implied intelligence (any morgan freeman character)

but here in Payback mel Gibson just does exactly the opposite, the movie acts as a kind of two hour buildup of the his character's factor of badass-ness, with little plot, or development, or nuance along the way. meanwhile instead of verbally building himself up on screen ala Keyser Soze, the character instead undercuts his character's bad ass-ness by slyly poking fun at himself, and allowing a bit of abuse to come his way. By the end of the film the Mel Gibson has established a classic movie badass.

it works!

8 out of 10