Payback (1999)
Payback is a 1999 American neo-noir action thriller film written and directed by Brian Helgeland in his directorial debut, and starring Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, and David Paymer. It is based on the novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake using the pseudonym Richard Stark, which had earlier been adapted into the 1967 film noir classic Point Blank, directed by John Boorman and starring Lee Marvin. In 2006, Helgeland issued a director’s cut that differs substantially from the version released by the studio.RELATED:
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Plot.
Porter, a career thief and former U.S. Marine, lies facedown on the kitchen table of an unlicensed doctor, after having been shot twice and betrayed for $70,000. As the doctor uses the whiskey he is drinking as a sterilizing agent and digs out the bullets, Porter begins making his plans to get the money back and take revenge. Broke after five months recuperating, Porter uses a series of petty thefts and short cons to quickly acquire $1,000 cash, a new suit, a revolver, and a few meals. He then begins tracking down his estranged wife Lynn and former partner-in-crime Val Resnick. In flashbacks, Porter recalls that they betrayed him following a $140,000 heist from local Chinese Triad. Resnick had manipulated Lynn into helping him with a picture showing Porter with another woman, a high-priced call girl named Rosie, and implying that the two were having an affair.
Lynn shoots Porter, then she and Resnick leave Porter for dead. Val used the cash to buy his way back into “the Outfit,” a local organized crime syndicate, by paying off his outstanding debt of $130,000 to them.
Porter first seeks out his wife, Lynn, out of loyalty to their marriage; however, she has been consumed by guilt and become addicted to heroin. Porter attempts to help her sober up by confining her and confiscating her drugs, but the next morning he finds her dead from an overdose using a hidden stash. Believing that Resnick was funding her drug habit, Porter interrogates Lynn’s drug connection, who points him towards Resnick’s middle-man, Arthur Stegman, a sleazy drug, muscle, and weapons supplier for the bottom rung of the criminal underworld.
Porter finds Stegman in the company of two corrupt police detectives, Hicks and Leary, who threaten him for a share of the $70,000, once he acquires it.
Using Stegman’s information, Porter enlists the help of Rosie, who is now affiliated with the Outfit. Rosie agrees, revealing that she still cares about Porter from when he was her bodyguard; Porter agrees, and the two lament that they never moved forward with their relationship, as they were each repelled by the others’ career and Porter could not abandon Lynn. Rosie tells Porter that he can track Resnick through his employ of specialty prostitutes, as he is barred from soliciting Outfit call girls because his sadistic tendencies nearly killed one of them.
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Production.
The film was shot from September to November 1997, in Chicago and Los Angeles, though neither city is referred to in the film. Although credited as director, Brian Helgeland’s cut of the film was not the theatrical version released to audiences. After the end of principal photography, Helgeland’s version was deemed too dark for the mainstream public. Following a script rewrite by Terry Hayes, director Helgeland was replaced. There was initially some uncertainty on who directed the reshoots, with some sources claiming it was the production designer John Myhre. However, Paul Abascal has stated on his website that he in fact directed the new scenes. The new director reshot 30% of the film. The intent was to make the Porter character accessible. The film’s tagline became: “Get Ready to Root for the Bad Guy.” A potentially controversial scene between Porter and Lynn which arguably involves spousal abuse was excised and more plot elements were added to the third act. After 10 days of reshoots, a new opening scene and voiceover track also were added, and Kris Kristofferson walked on as a new villain.
Alternate version.
Helgeland’s version, Straight Up: The Director’s Cut, was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD on April 10, 2007, after an October 2006 run at the Austin Film Festival. The Director’s Cut version features a female Bronson, that is never seen only heard over the phone voiced by Sally Kellerman, does not include the voice-over by Porter and several Bronson-related scenes. During their scuffle (which is longer than in the theatrical version and was the main source of controversy), Porter earlier tells Lynn that his picture with Rosie was taken before they met, thereby rendering her jealousy unjustified. This version has an entirely different, ambiguous ending where Porter is seriously wounded in a train station shootout and driven off by Rosie. A June 4, 2012, look at “movies improved by directors’ cuts” by The A.V. Club described Payback: Straight Up as “a marked improvement on the unrulier original.”
Editing.
Mel Gibson stated in a short interview released as a DVD extra that it “would’ve been ideal to shoot in black and white.” He noted that “people want a color image” and that the actual film used a bleach bypass process to tint the film. In addition to this, the production design used muted shades of red, brown, and grey for costumes, sets, and cars for further effect.