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It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Based on the Richard Start novel "The Hunter," which was earlier filmed by John Boorman in the classic Lee Marvin picture "Point Blank," brings the story into the modern era with Mel Gibson in the lead. Gibson plays a crook who's double crossed by his partner and wife, and left for dead. However, Gibson is not dead and works his way up the "Syndicate" ladder to get back his money, as well as revenge upon those who crossed him. Although the story takes place in a contemporary setting, the film is wonderfully retro, featuring timeless business suits, old 70s looking cars, and more anachronistic rotary phones than you can shake a stick at. The story is a pretty straightforward revenge tale, but it's filled with so many colorful moments that it's pieces add up to a greater whole. One of my favorite moments is (SPOILER ALERT!) Gibson finding his ex-wife dead in bed and lying down next to her to recall the events leading up to his double-cross in a dreamlike flashback sequence, which manages to be both surreal and melancholy. The film is also filled with clever bits of action, such as when Gibson purposefully crashes a car head on during a heist, including a nice touch of close-up of a mouthguard hitting the ground as he get's out of the car to denote Gibson's premeditation of the crash. There's also a memorable toe smashing torture sequence that's not all that graphic, but effectively unsettling. "Payback" also has some great supporting performances by Maria Bello, David Paymer, Bill Duke, Deborah Kara Unger, John Glover, William Devane, Kris Kristofferson, and James Coburn. I was particularly taken with the underused Gregg Henry as Gibson's friend who double crosses him on a caper and steals his wife, setting off the events of the film. Lucy Liu (billed at Lucy Alexis Liu) is also quite memorable as a dominatrix/torturer friend/mistress of Henry's."Payback" came out at the peak of 1990s Quentin Tarantino ripoffs, but to lump this film in with that batch of imitators does not do it justice. "Payback" is a closer cousin to Don Siegel style of crime films (i.e. "The Killers" or "Charley Varrick") than to Tarantino. It's minus the pop culture references and has it's own unique dark sense of humor. The film is shot with a color palette of black and blues that make it nicely reminiscent of the black and white film noirs that it's referencing. And to be clear, this is the original theatrical version of the film I watched, which is supposed to be vastly different than the director's cut. Thirty percent of the film was re-shot when Brian Helgeland was replaced as director. The theatrical version is said to have had more humor and a generally more breezy tone. At the time this film was released, I was dubious of Gibson's tinkering, but since then Gibson has proven himself as a brilliant filmmaker, so I was less dubious this time around. Gibson years later co-write and produced a spiritual sequel to "Payback" with "Get the Gringo," in which Gibson plays another thief with a single name, which Gibson also narrates, and where his character at one point even says how he was once married, but his wife ran off with a former business associate. Overall, "Payback" is not in the same league as "Point Blank," but it does stand on it's own as a wonderfully retro crime film with an amazingly strong cast.

I have seen the released version of payback more then a few times and like it quite a bit. I just watched the Directors' Cut and found myself watching a totally different film. The producers must have done a pre- screening and found out that the director/screenwriter is an idiot and does not know how to direct. Brian Helgeland wrote this screenplay as well as the great LA Confidential but should never be allowed to direct as he has not idea how to do that. Payback the Director's Cut tried very hard to be a 40's Sam Spade kind of film noir but quickly became a series of unrelated scenes with throw away one liners. Sally Kellerman's voice over work is as wooden as her acting and for this reason she does not show up in the better version and is replaced by the fine actor Kris Kristofferson. The second half on Payback has been re-shot completely and the story changed. They still gave Helgeland credit for Directing as this was a gift to him as his original stuff is crap. Whomever re-shot the film and directed did a much better job and then the Editor saved the day by fixing a mess.I seriously wondered when Kris Kristofferson was going to show up and the net thing I know the credits are rolling. WTF

For better or worse we live in a world of remakes and not to put to fine a point on it the remakes are almost always worse, even Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, excellent as it was couldn't quite equal let alone eclipse Bedtime Story. This time we have something of a mish-mosh. Comic crime- writer Donald E. Westlake (Dortmunder) began a second series of much more violent crime novels in the early sixties using the authorial name Richard Stark. One of these, The Hunter, was filmed as Point Blank, with Lee Marvin as the eponymous hunter, now known as Walker. This was as close to type-casting as you can get given that Marvin, like Jack Palance, is blessed with a 'don't f***k with me' appearance which Payback's Mel Gibson (known as Porter this time around) is completely lacking. There are other changes as well; having tracked down the guy who actually crossed him, Marvin tossed him off a roof whilst Gibson is content merely to shoot him. Payback remains an entertaining movie but Point Blank is still the one to beat.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I wasn't expecting much but the story was good and the acting was very good. Gibson's character was interesting, brash, opinionated, and violent - a good combination, haha. Everyone likes the underdog who just bulls his way around and gets away with it. The cast was very good, they worked well with each other. I just loved seeing James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson again on the screen. One surprise was Lucy Liu - I didn't even realize it was really her until her second scene - I have never seen her in a part like that and she was actually pretty funny.Rated 8/10 for good action and the right amount of violence.