Max Payne (DVD)

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MAX PAYNE


Last night I was feeling tired and crappy so decided to go up early and watch a film in bed. I had two choices of films that were posted to me that morning and decided I would go for Max Payne. I have heard abit about the film based on the computer game, but not a lot about what it is like. So after a shower and into my comfies I put the DVD into my play station and hoped it was not a waste of ...
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Max Payne is a detective in New York City with a terrible past he cannot forgive and forget. Three years ago his wife and beautiful newborn baby were murdered and the killer was never found. Max spends his time still hunting clues down to find their killer after they were never found and the case was put aside. His ex partner Alex tries to help him as Max changes. He becomes arrogant, detached himself from the rest of the department ... more

Assassin for Revenge

MAX PAYNE

Last night I was feeling tired and crappy so decided to go up early and watch a film in bed. I had two choices of films that were posted to me that morning and decided I would go for Max Payne. I have heard abit about the film based on the computer game, but not a lot about what it is like. So after a shower and into my comfies I put the DVD into my play station and hoped it was not a waste of time. The video game of Max Payne was released in the UK in 2002-2003 and is a third person shooting game built around taking your revenge. The game sold pretty well as it was the first game to have a bullet mode shooting- like The Matrix games- time slows down when bullets are fired to create a slow motion, exciting experience. As I have not played the game though I didn’t really have an expectation of the film but I have liked others that have been based on games such as Resident Evil and Tomb Raider so thought I would like this.

There were three main factors on why I choose this film on the Love Film list. The plot sounded ok. The story of revenge is likely to include violence, adventure and interesting twists which is why this genre is one of my favourites. Another was because of the main character Max, who is played by Mark Wahlberg. I have seen plenty of other films including him that I really liked and I think he is a good actor, especially in Two crime films – ‘The Departed’ (2006) and ‘We Own The Night’ (2007 which I have also reviewed.
Thirdly, John Moore who has directed a few great films made me think that this would also be a good one to watch. John is an Irish director and two films I loved which he directed were- ‘Flight of the Phoenix’ (2004) and ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ (2001).

INFO

Director – John Moore
As mentioned John has a reputation for a good standard of films which I really enjoyed. He mainly works on action/thriller films but has done a variety of others.

Writers- Beau Thorne (Screenplay) and Sam Lake (Video game entertainment)
Music- Marco Beltrami, Buck J Sanders and Metsuo
Release Date- 14 November 2008
Runtime- 100 Mins
Distributed- 20th Century Fox
Certificate- 15

Filming locations- Canada (Toronto) and New York.

PLOT

Max Payne is a detective in New York City with a terrible past he cannot forgive and forget. Three years ago his wife and beautiful newborn baby were murdered and the killer was never found. Max spends his time still hunting clues down to find their killer after they were never found and the case was put aside. His ex partner Alex tries to help him as Max changes. He becomes arrogant, detached himself from the rest of the department and seems lost in despair. Alex finds a fresh clue with a lead which he tries to tell Max. Will Max ever find his revenge? Bodies begin to be added to the streets and more clues begin to unfold.

CHARACTERS

Max Payne – Mark Wahlberg

Max is lonely, angry and full of revenge. He is a quiet guy who detaches himself away from the other detectives and finds himself having a lonely and dark life. He doesn’t care much about anything other than finding his wife and baby’s killer and many become worried about his change in character and his work. He is a very likeable character. You feel sorry for him straight away when you find out what has happened to him and I thought I could understand why he behaved the way he did. If I had a baby that was murdered I wouldn’t stop till I knew either. All the way through I was completely involved in Max and how he was feeling. His character is driven by emotion and plenty of it. This was mainly because we found clues near enough the same time as Max did so you feel involved in what is happening.

Mark was a really good choice in actor for this part. It was good to see that a video game protagonist was portrayed in this as quite an average man. He was nicely built but not muscled and he fitted the character well. Mark played Max spot on and I thought the acting could not have been faulted. He has to go through a lot of different emotions close together and he was believable in everything he did. I also think Mark Wahlberg is pretty cute lol.

Mona Sax – Mila Kunis

Mona was the main female character in the story although she isn’t really involved that much until half way through then we see her becoming more involved. She has a similar circumstance to Max and after having a run in with him and blaming him for something he hasn’t done, she decides to help Max gain his revenge. I didn’t think much of Mona to be honest and thought she was quite a stereotypical bad ass chick in many of these movies. She is very attractive, wears slinky clothes including leather but she can handle herself.
However saying this I do like Mila Kunis and think she is an ok actress. I have recently seen her in ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ and she also been in ‘Get over It’.

BB Hensley – Beau Bridges

BB Hensley is an interesting character in this film and I won’t say a lot about him or it’ll ruin the story but he is close to Max and is a powerful, wealthy man.
He is featured all the way through the film and has an important role.
Beau Bridges has been acting for over forty years and even though I didn’t recognise the name I did when I saw his face. He has acted in many great productions mainly in TV, some include- ‘My Name Is Earl’ and ‘Stargate SG-1’.

Other Characters

One interesting character that I didn’t even know until I was half way through the film was-

Lt Jim Bravura – was played by Ludacris

Jason Colvin – Chris O’Donnell
Jack Lupino – Amaury Nolasco
Nicole Horne - Kate Burton
Dept Alex Balder- Donal Logue
Natasha sax – Olga Kurylenko

OPINIONS

Filming and Effects

One major feature of this film was the way it was filmed which I really liked. Max Payne is done in a Blanc Noir effect like many sinister murder films do such as Sin City. I think this effect is really great to look at and adds to the dark mood of the sets. It is grouped as an American Noir Action which is properly one of my favourite kinds of films to watch. The extensive visual effects used throughout the film were brilliant. This effect made the whole narrative come alive and especially helped in those dark alley scenes.

The special effects apparently took ages to build and they had to add teams to build everything they wanted. Many features were one by CGI including buildings that were used which half were shown in this effect to make it look higher and more dramatic. I really thought the effects defiantly made the film what it was.
As previously mentioned the film included Bullet Time used in many films now but this was one of the first to create it. It used this in two major fighting scenes with masses of bullets spraying close around Max. I love this technique and think it really emphasises the danger people are in and how close they are to dying.
Another thing I liked was the creative camera shots. Birds eye view was used a lot to show the view of someone or in opposite effect show how venerable someone is on ground level. It made the buildings look monstrous and the action seem more intense. The edits were fast like the action to keep your adrenalin up and the emotional scenes were the opposite of slow and powerful.
There was incredible lighting in the film which showed spectacular shadows around some sets. Max’s character is showed in darkness and this reflects on how he feels.

Narrative

I quite liked the story and thought it was well shown. The main plot was good I like this kind of story and it also had a few sub plots and twists which were not that predictable. Having a revenge story brings out many features that can be brilliant in creating a good action film and I think the way it was directed was also great. It was a simple plot really and I found it quite easy to follow and new information was revealed in good time. The action scenes can be fast but that’s the whole point of them really so it is not hard to follow.
There is no real love scenes in the film as obviously Max’s wife has been murdered he shows no interest in any other women or sexual activity which is given to him on a plate, it shows his true loyalty to his dead wife and that he cares about finding the truth more than forgiving and moving on.

Themes

There were many themes in the film obviously including the main revenge plot line. Although it is to do with getting revenge I am not sure it really glamorises the fact that it is ok to get your revenge which is a good thing.
Other than this there is a theme of drugs. It shows that using drugs may give you a boost or help you for a certain time but in the end it always leads to death and destruction. The drugs used in the film are made up but it just suggests the use of them and what it can do to people.
I think the film shows the reality of how bad the streets can bb today even though it is more dramatic than usual. It shows crime, murder and deceit which all happens especially in big cities such as New York. In reality murders do happen and I can imagine that many people will have revenge too.

Mise En Scene - (for those who do not know this is a french expression used in film to describe the design aspects such as costume and look of the film).

The Mise En Scene in the film fitted perfectly with the Blanc Noir effect. The clothing was dark and stylish even though some stereotypical. The drug users and gang members has the usual black, leather or long coats and had tattoos and piercing. Max was abit different. Even though he was a detective he looked more casual than the others. I don’t know whether this shows his lack of interest in anything other than his goals or just to show how isolated and different he is to the others.
It all added to the grim, sinister times it was showing and the horrible plot it was following.

‘I don't believe in Heaven. I believe in Pain. I believe in Fear. I believe in Death’.

There are a lot of bad reviews on this film and it does have a low rotten tomato rating of 18% which I think is abit harsh. Even though it was not a film to take your breathe away I thought it was pretty good especially as it is based on a computer game. I think the actors did a good job and the story was simple and understandable. Maybe this is because I haven’t played the games so I wasn’t disappointed to find it wasn’t like it I am not sure. I do believe it should have had a higher rating and then maybe gotten abit grittier similar to the game as I know that’s aimed at adults and it is violent. I think that maybe this game wasn’t really directed for gaming fans which was a sight mistake; even though it is good for new fans, it could have been better and added more of the games elements in to be likable to both game fans and new comers.

Main Positives

- Good simple story
- Great action sequences with Bullet Time
- Great CGI effects
- Blanc Noir effects
- Good Soundtrack
- Very good acting and nice characters

Negatives

- Dialogue was bland
- Not a lot like the game (I’ve heard from other people)
- Low certificate (could have done more if an 18)
- Parts can be unbelievable (monster flying things)

I would recommend the film as I quite enjoyed it and advise those who are fans of the game not to set a expectation of the game toward the film or you could be disappointed. I properly won’t buy the film but would watch it again if it comes on TV. If you would like more info on the film or to buy the DVD you can look at these websites-

www.play.com- The DVD is set at £11.99
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467197 - movie info

Thanks for reading - Blackmagicstar4* May 09. Published on Ciao and Dooyoo. xx

 

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