Max Payne (film)

Max Payne
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Moore
Written by	Beau Thorne Sam Lake
Produced by	John Moore Scott Faye Julie Yorn
Starring	Mark Wahlberg Mila Kunis Beau Bridges Chris "Ludacris" Bridges
Cinematography	Jonathan Sela
Edited by	Dan Zimmerman
Music by	Marco Beltrami Buck J. Sanders Metsuo
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	Australia: October 16, 2008 North America: October 17, 2008 United Kingdom: November 14, 2008
Running time	100 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$35 million
Box office	$59,869,362

Max Payne is a 2008 American action film based on the 2001 video game of the same name. The film was directed by John Moore and stars Mark Wahlberg in the title role. The film was released on October 16, 2008 in Australia, one day prior to the United States release date.

Plot

In New York City, detective Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is working in the Cold Case unit after transferring there three years before. He is consumed with investigating and finding the murderer of his wife, Michelle (Marianthi Evans), and daughter. In his search, Max is getting information from his snitch, Trevor (Andrew Friedman), which leads him to Doug who is with two other drug addicts in an empty train station. They follow Max to the bathroom where Max starts a fight with them trying to get information out of Doug about his wife's murder. After getting nothing out of the druggie he goes to Trevor's apartment, where he is having a party, looking for another name. Here, Max is introduced to Natasha Sax (Olga Kurylenko), who takes an interest in him, and her sister Mona Sax (Mila Kunis). The sisters get into an argument, Max turns around and Natasha is gone. He goes looking for Natasha near a back room where people are taking Valkyr. There Max is silently confronted by Jack Lupino (Amaury Nolasco) but Natasha comes over and takes him away. Max wants information from Natasha and is interested in her tattoos so he invites her back to his apartment. However, after Natasha tries to get him to sleep with her 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 and Max becomes the prime suspect with his old partner Alex Balder (Donal Logue) on the case. Alone in his office, Alex notices the tattoo on Natasha's arm is similar to the one found on the murderer's arm from the case file of Max's wife. Alex tries to contact Max but with no luck and quickly leaves to find Max at his apartment. Max gets the message and arrives at this apartment, the door is slightly open and it's dark inside. He finds his place a mess and Alex dead before he is attacked and blacks out.

Max wakes up in a hospital beside his father's partner and close friend of the family, B.B. Hensley (Beau Bridges). Max decides to pay his respects to Alex but upon arrival is kicked out by his angry wife, Christa (Nelly Furtado) who blames Max for Alex' unhappiness about being unable to help Max, and also for bringing ruin on anyone close to him. While being questioned by internal affairs officer Jim Bravura (Ludacris) 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 go to visit Owen Green for answers but can't save him from a winged shadow that pulls him out of the building to his death. Following an original lead the two visit Natasha's tattoo parlor to dig up clues about the ink. The tattoo artist tells them it's the wings of a Valkyrie which is related to Norse mythology, it is for protection in battle. Desperate for clues, Max takes some of Michelle's belongings out of storage and looks through them and comes across some documents from the Aesir Corporation; the company she worked for. Taking some of the Aeiser documents Max goes to a diner to meet B.B.. Max wants the name of Michelle's old supervisor and B.B. tells him it is Jason Colvin (Chris O'Donnell). After Max leaves, B.B. meets Lt. Bravura at Aesir and tells him the entire story behind Michelle's death.

Arriving at Aesir Pharmaceuticals headquarters, Max interrogates Jason for what Michelle was working on before her death. After beating him, Jason explains that Michelle's death had something to do with a government contract to create a serum to make stronger and fiercer soldiers, but the drug was completely unstable and very addictive, only one percent of the test subjects showed the desired results. The remaining of the test subjects went insane and the project was shut down. Jason agrees to testify if Max protects him, but as they try to escape a S.W.A.T. team that was called by B.B arrives and kills Jason before attempting to kill Max. Max escapes the gunfight with the envelope and shows the video to Mona at her place. The video goes into detail about the Valkyr project and has a testimonial by Jack Lupino where he explains that while on the drug he feels invincible with no side effects. Max goes to Jack's hideout, Ragna Rock, where he wins a gunfight with all the henchmen. He is losing to Jack when B.B. arrives and saves him but while leaving Max is again knocked unconscious.

B.B. and Lincoln DeNeuf tell Max they are the ones who are selling Valkyr as a street drug and that B.B had Michelle killed because she inadvertently came across documents that could have incriminated him. They plan to weigh Max down and throw him in the river with a few vials of Valkyr in his pocket, making his death appear to be a drug-induced suicide. Max escapes into the icy river, climbing back to the docks moments later. In a desperate attempt to prevent hypothermia, he consumes both vials of Valkyr, turning Max into a super soldier. As a result he constantly sees multiple valkeries. Meanwhile, Bravura, suspicious about Colvin's death and suspecting corruption within the police force, calls in the FBI to take over the investigation, putting B.B. on alert. Fueled by vengeance and Valkyr, Max follows B.B. back to the Aesir building and almost effortlessly cuts through the Aesir guards and confronts B.B. on the building's heliport. Max shoots B.B. dead and is shown shortly after being surrounded by the police.

After the credits Max arrives at his favorite bar where he is reunited with Mona. She shows him a newspaper article about Aesir's stock prices rising, next to a photo of Aesir CEO Nicole Horne (Kate Burton).

Production

The 2001 video game Max Payne was optioned by the production company Collision Entertainment to produce a live-action film adaptation. By April 2002, distributors Dimension Films and Abandon Entertainment were attached to the project. Shawn Ryan, the creator of the television series The Shield, was hired to write a script for the planned film. By June 2005, without production starting, Collision Entertainment had taken the project to 20th Century Fox. In November 2007, with a script written by Beau Thorne, Fox announced John Moore as the director and Mark Wahlberg as the star in the titular role.

Filming began in Toronto on March 2, 2008 and wrapped by May 9, 2008. The film will be rated PG-13 in the United States, a departure from the M-rated video game series. Mila Kunis said of the tone-down, "It's incredibly dark. You still get the gist of it. The only difference between R-rated and PG-13 is you might not see as much blood. You might not see blood squirting everywhere, but as far as the sadness and the darkness of it and the distraught [nature] of these human beings is very much captured in the film."

Though filmed with the intention of receiving a PG-13 rating, Max Payne received an unofficial R rating by the MPAA on September 5th 2008, which resulted in a backlash from Moore..

On September 22, 2008, a recent trailer confirmed a PG-13 rating, "for violence including intense shooting sequences, drug content, some sexuality and brief strong language." Director John Moore confirmed in an interview with GameDaily's John Gaudiosi that the film was awarded the PG-13 rating without any major changes being made to the film. Describing the re-editing process Moore stated, "We trimmed some frames more for the sake of trimming frames than anything, but we got the rating without any major changes at all."

Many months prior to the release of the movie, a draft of the script had been leaked. Though many doubts existed as to the validity of the document, with the release of the Max Payne trailer, which had words exactly matching those of the script, it was accepted that the script was indeed real.

The film was given the 15 rating in the United Kingdom, for "strong violence" and MA 15+ in Australia for "Frequent violence and drug use". the PG-13 rating was given after the film was cut for its theatrical release in the US.

Cast

• Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne, the main protagonist and a cop haunted by the grisly murders of his wife and baby. Armed with a ‘nothing left to lose’ mentality, Max sets out on a course that carries him above the law in his relentless quest to bring justice to the last remaining killer responsible for his shattered life. While describing his role, Wahlberg has said, "It's probably one of the edgier roles I've played but also the most layered. Here's a very happy guy who worked a dismal job, had a beautiful family. But the beauty in his life was taken away. He just goes on a rampage. It's all driven by emotion."
• Beau Bridges as B.B. Hensley, a former cop and Max Payne's mentor. Revealed to be the real antagonist at the climax.
• Mila Kunis as Mona Sax, an assassin and Russian Mob underboss who seeks revenge for the murder of her sister.
• Chris "Ludacris" Bridges as Jim Bravura, an internal affairs agent.
• Chris O'Donnell as Jason Colvin, an executive and Nicole Horne's "right-hand man".
• Nelly Furtado as Christa Balder, wife of Alex Balder.
• Kate Burton as Nicole Horne, CEO of Aesir Corporation.
• Donal Logue as Alex Balder, Max Payne's former partner and best friend.
• Amaury Nolasco as Jack Lupino, the primary antagonist, mob boss, Former Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps where he became a Valkyr test subject.
• Olga Kurylenko as Natasha Sax , Mona's sister.
• Marianthi Evans as Michelle Payne, wife of Max Payne.

Critical reception

Max Payne ranked first on its opening weekend, grossing US$18 million at the box office. The film has received mainly negative reviews. The film has a 20% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 95 reviews, and a consensus opinion that "While it boasts some stylish action, Max Payne suffers severely from an illogical plot and overdirection." Tom Long noted that the film may be the worst of the year. Louise Keller said "the most striking element is the production design..." Bruce Paterson wrote for the Australian Film Critics Association and Cinephilia that "Mark Wahlberg is terrific in hard-bitten roles", but in a reference to the Valkyries concluded "it could have done with more of the Norse and less of the force."

External links

• Official site and trailer
• Max Payne at AllMovie
• Max Payne at IMDb
• Max Payne at Metacritic
• Max Payne at Rotten Tomatoes
• Max Payne at Box Office Mojo