“Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back. I was already so far past the point of no return I couldn’t remember what it had looked like when I had passed it.”
-Max Payne, Chapter Three
Max Payne, the 2001 third-person shooter from developer Remedy Entertainment, had three trademark qualities which endeared it to gamers like myself: a comic book-style presentation, loads of slow-motion gunplay, and the internal monologues (see example above) of an oddly likable fellow named Max Payne who — haunted by the murder of his wife and newborn child, and framed for the death of his former DEA partner — barely manages to keep his sanity by cracking bad jokes, quaffing painkillers and reimagining himself as a film noir detective.
Max Payne, the 2008 film, has none of these virtues. In bringing Max to the big screen, director John Moore has turned it into a cookie-cutter Hollywood release that draws only minimal inspiration from the game’s plot and style, and — dare I say it — is even more convoluted and needlessly melodramatic than its source material.
(SPOILER ALERT)
The basic trappings are the same: Max Payne is a former DEA agent who lost his family to murderous drug addicts, his old partner Alex is helping him find the killers, there’s a corporation called Aesir which is producing that particular drug, a madman named Jack Lupino using it to kill people, and an assassin named Mona Sax who helps Max get revenge. But rather than recreate the mystery that game Max solves first-hand by following a trail of bodies, movie Max has all the evidence fall right into his lap.
Working a desk job in the cold-cases division of the NYPD’s 55th precinct, Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) has no leads, no clues, and no interest in life. Armed with two handguns and a picture of his dead wife, he spends his nights tracking down druggies and grilling them for info — before returning to his dilapidated apartment empty-handed. But when the movie begins, a highly unlikely series of events begin to unfold. When Max brings home Mona’s druggie sister (Olga Kurylenko) from a party, rejects her sexual advances and kicks her out, she is brutally killed.
Then, when Max’s old friend Alex discovers that she had the same winged tattoo as Max’s wife Michelle, he rushes to tell Max, and is brutally killed.
After breaking into Alex’s office and discovering the connection, Max remembers that his wife’s former employer, Aesir Corporation, also uses a wing as its symbol — and on a hunch, beats information out of her former supervisor (Chris O’Donnell) with his bare hands. After handing Max a deus ex machina manila envelope containing positively everything he needs to link the company to his wife’s death, the supervisor too is brutally killed.
(END SPOILERS)
There’s far more — the entire movie is a confusing mess, probably doubly so for those who haven’t played the game — but this is the point, one hour into a 1:40 film, that I realized the Max Payne I knew had been buried by a nonsensical script that completely failed to capture the essence of the character and his journey, and would disappoint me, as a Max Payne fan, no matter how many token references to things like “Gognitti’s Self Storage” the production team had dug up.
Simultaneously, one hour into the film, I was finally witnessing the first gunfight of the movie. There are animated CG guns that appear during the movie’s credits, and I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said that practically as many shots are fired there as in the entire rest of the film. As an action film fan, I left the theater even more disappointed.
Though I’m not really sure what Mark Wahlberg was talking about when he called Max Payne his favorite role, considering how little time the script gives him to develop an character best known through (here practically nonexistent) internal monologue — or how the movie’s marketers can get away with producing a beautiful trailer like this and then including no such segment in the final movie — I should note that the film looks incredible. No matter how disappointing the movie’s plot and overall direction, it’s clear that the production team spent tremendous effort on the movie’s environments.
From Roscoe Street Station to Jack Lupino’s candlelit inner sanctum, the Ragna Rock club to the Aesir building, I felt that shiver of familiarity course down my spinal column every time I realized that I was looking at was another game level come to life. For this alone, Max Payne might be worth a rental for diehard fans.
But for those who haven’t played the game, or those considering a theater ticket, I suggest you think twice. Do yourself a favor, take that $10, and spend it on something worthwhile — like a certain 2001 video game.
GameCyte spent $10.50 to see this film at a theater in the San Francisco Bay Area on opening night, 12:01 AM October 17th. The theater was approximately two-thirds full. There were very few people clapping at the end; one segment of the audience booed. Approximately 10 stayed through the closing credits to see the teaser for the movie’s sequel.
Leave a Reply