\n<\/strong><\/p>\nStars: Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bellor, Bill Duke, Deborah Kara Unger, John Glover, William Devane, Lucy Liu, Jack Conley, Kris Kristofferson, Kwame Amoaku, James Coburn <\/strong>and David Paymer.<\/strong><\/p>\nTagline: Get ready to root for the bad guy.<\/em><\/p>\nThe Plot…<\/strong><\/p>\nPorter is a career criminal.\u00a0 After ripping off a Chinese gang for $140,000.00, Porter is betrayed by his crime partners.\u00a0 Shot repeatedly in the back and left for dead, Parker doesn’t die.\u00a0 Once he recovers, Parker is determined to get his cut of the job back.\u00a0 Parker doesn’t care that he’s up against the Outfit or that the Chinese gang is gunning for him.\u00a0 Parker wants his $70,000.00.<\/p>\n
Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\nPayback <\/strong><\/em>(1999) is based on Richard Stark’s novel, THE HUNTER.\u00a0 The novel was first filmed as Point Blank<\/em> directed by John Boorman and starred Lee Marvin.<\/p>\nBrian Helgeland’s adaptation came to Mel Gibson’s attention who wanted to star in the movie.\u00a0 Helgeland wanted to direct and it would be his first feature film.\u00a0 He didn’t think Gibson would want to work with a first-time director.\u00a0 But Gibson did.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Gibson and Helgeland didn’t see eye-to-eye on how the film was shaping up.\u00a0 Two days after winning an Academy Award<\/em> (Best Screenplay Adaptation<\/em> for LA Confidential<\/em>), Gibson had Helgeland fired.\u00a0 About one third of the movie was reshot.\u00a0 Paul Abascal is credited with directing the reshoots.\u00a0 Helgeland still got director’s credit.\u00a0 This became the theatrical release reviewed here.<\/p>\nA director’s cut was released on DVD in 2007. It features a darker tone (more in line with noir), Kris Kristofferson isn’t in this version, but Sally Kellerman’s voice (as a female version of Kristofferson’s character) is. Some of the characters killed in the theatrical version survive in the director’s cut.<\/p>\n
Gibson felt that Helgeland’s version was making his character less assessible to the audience.\u00a0 After the release of the director’s cut (years later), Helgeland said he could now appreciate the theatrical, audience-friendly cut, but he was shooting a grittier noir film with a less than happy ending.\u00a0 I think that both films work.<\/p>\n
Gibson is excellent as Parker.\u00a0 He is supported by an amazing cast.\u00a0 Gregg Henry as Val Resnik is a scene-stealer.\u00a0 Kudos also to Bill Duke, Deborah Kara Unger, William Devane, Lucy Liu, James Coburn and David Paymer.<\/p>\n
Payback <\/strong><\/em>(1999) rates 5 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/logo\/zview_a.png\")
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Payback (1999) Director: \u00a0Brian Helgeland Screenplay: Brian Helgeland, Terry Hayes based on THE HUNTER\u00a0by Richard Stark aka Donald Westlake Stars:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,51,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-crime","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35520"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35532,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35520\/revisions\/35532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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