This movie never got much attention when first it came out. I’d come across it a couple of time while surfing channels and it looked quite good to me. So when it was shown again last week took the time to finally see it from start to end.

Mel Gibson plays “Porter”, a criminal that gets conned out of 70.000 dollars by his partner and left for dead. Half a year later he’s back to collect his share of the loot. But by then his partner has used the money to buy himself into a crime syndicate called “The Outfit”. Porter has no choice to collect the money from the syndicate himself and starts an odyssee up the ranks of this organisation, killing whoever is in his way. All he wants is his fair share.

On his way up he attracts the attention of a whole bunch of strange characters that want to benefit from his quest in one way or another. Including bad cops and a gang of Japanese gunmen led by SM prostitute Pearl (billiantly funny role by Lucy Liu). Porter now has to find a way to get his money and get rid of these freeloaders at the same time.

Director Brian Helgeland adopted Donald E. Westlake’s novel himself, and has done a great job at bringing it to the big screen. With a grim blueish colour scheme and a delightful soundtrack featuring Frank Sinatra as well as old soul classics, “Payback” hits the right tone. It’s blunt, violent and desolate, but it has a real soft side to it. Gibson’s character is an “honest crook” with principles and a soft spot for a prostitute called “Rosie” (Maria Bello, yumm!) for whom he used to “create a safe working environment”. This is a tough guy you can relate to. Gibson is great in this role.

Film Noir meets classic revenge movie. Great stuff. **** (out of 5).

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