It rained constantly throughout the movie, but that didn’t seem to affect anyone. Almost every character stood in the pouring rain dressed in moderately expensive clothes, talking as though they were in the comforts of their own living room. And these conversations would last a while, but no one seemed to notice their footwear getting wet. It does not matter if the rain was symbolic of anything; a movie this stylized for the sake of style is just stupid. “Max Payne,” based off the video game by Remedy Entertainment, is the perfect example of the crap that is now produced and shows how large a step Hollywood has taken in the wrong direction.
When his wife and child are murdered and one of the killers escapes, Detective Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg, “The Departed”) investigates every possible lead in order to gain revenge. He stumbles upon a conspiracy regarding a special drug that either makes you invincible or have demon-like hallucinations. To add insult to injury, Payne is blamed for the murder of his ex-partner Alex (Donald Logue, “Ghost Rider”) and a beautiful woman named Natasha (Olga Kurylenko, upcoming “Quantum of Solace”). Payne and Natasha’s sister Mona (Mila Kunis, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) team up and discover a connection between the murders and Max’s wife, as she was developing the drug before she was killed. A chief security boss for the drug producing company, BB Hensley (Beau Bridges, “Charlotte’s Web”), comes to Max’s aid while he is pursued by Detective Bravura (Ludacris, “Crash”).
If the plot seems jumbled and disoriented, that is because the plot is jumbled and disoriented. Nothing makes much sense: Characters are introduced and barely explained before they are killed off, plot lines go on unnecessary tangents or just come from nowhere, and everything leads up to a twist as old and used as literature itself. The dialogue is also extremely one-dimensional, thus the characters lack any real depth. Payne has only one goal: to get revenge. He is a shallow character, and it is impossible to feel sympathy for him. Still, he at least has a goal because it is hopeless to gain any sense of motivation for any other character in this movie. From stage one, this movie was a disaster.
Additionally, the acting is terrible all around. One forgets Mila Kunis is in the movie because her performance is extremely unmemorable, which is a shame after her accomplishments this summer in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Mark Wahlberg is “on a roll” this year, first with “The Happening” and now this catastrophe. For an Oscar-nominated actor, he has no sense of a good script. Wahlberg scowls through the movie, acting like a tough guy, but clenching your fists and looking intensely at your scene partners is not all it takes to be tough. He has two vocal tones throughout: loud and intense whisper — neither works. The performance is simply too amateur to evoke any sympathy from the audience. With a slew of projects lined up for 2009, one hopes Wahlberg will learn from his mistakes in 2008, or else he will be forced into a career of entertaining at nursing homes so he can say hello to everyone’s mothers. Seriously, this movie would have been better if Andy Sandberg (“Saturday Night Live”) took the lead role.
The principal problem with this movie was the action. Any terrible movie can be somewhat redeemed with great action (think “The Island”). But “Max Payne,” lasting 100 minutes, does not have an action scene for the first 60. After sitting through a full hour of confusing plot, terrible dialogue and awful acting, the audience is finally treated to some action. Although there were some decent moments, it does not make up for the first hour lost, nor will it make up for the price of the admission ticket.
There are not enough bad things to say about this movie: It’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” with no action on that special drug, and the after effect is hellish. It is truly difficult to imagine director John Moore (“The Omen”) watched the final cut and said, “This is exactly what I wanted.” This movie is garbage; there is not one quality aspect about it. Those involved should feel embarrassment because this is an insult to fans of the video game, movie watchers and to film itself. Hollywood should take time to reflect and decide how to gain back its respect because after “Max Payne,” it owes an apology to anyone who has ever watched a movie.
1/2 star out of 5
