Payback

El guapo y testarudo gánster Mel Gibson, la guapa rubia por la que se preocupa, un par de tontos policías corruptos, mucha violencia, algo de sadomasoquismo y, lo más importante, una docena de matones cuya «genialidad» aumenta a medida que los vamos conociendo, desde el mayor perdedor hasta el jefe más grande, duro e inflexible. Y todo ello envuelto en nostálgicos filtros de cámara azul grisáceo y un humor bien negro. Un manjar que hace la boca agua. (10.08.2002)

No more Mr. Nice Guy. Un neo-noir rimbombante con un reparto inolvidable y acertado, grandes líneas y un final brillantemente ejecutado (uno de los pocos casos en los que la intervención del estudio ha beneficiado más bien a la película, algo que puedo decir después de ver el corte del director de Helgeland de Payback: Straight Up. Esta me pareció más floja…) ¡Nunca me canso de la venganza! Es una de esas películas a las que te gusta volver. ¡Fuego a discreción! (25.04.2018)

Helgeland managed a fairly decent mix of the gritty dude, Lethal Weapon, and the Tarantino crude gangster poetics, in which brutality is sort of danced, humorous, casual. Payback is no directorial opus magni - it is a rather routine film, which owes most of its great moments to the script and to the excellent Mel Gibson, who capitalized on his many years of experience in detective Riggs' skin, only to stand on the opposite side of the barricade. Thanks to him the incredibly stubborn thief Porter becomes a character almost humorously dangerous, who, with raw willfulness, walks through the reinforced concrete barricade for the smallest thing. The central character is the central value of Payback. We otherwise do not find anything particularly original or memorable here, everything works for the benefit of the whole and the result is a quality gangster film from the rough school that delights even with its decent ending. (29.11.2005)

Mel Gibson did a hell of a job in this one. He’s tough, cool, rough, his mouth is full of great lines and he’s about to finish what he’d started. This is one hell of a payback. It actually doesn’t matter how Mel is going to go about is, what’s important is that he shoots enough bullets and that there are tons of dead bodies around him. It’s as simple as that. It might be a bit of a wannabe cool over-filtered action ride, but other than that it’s a wacky movie in the vein of Tarantino, which will keep you entertained for those almost two hours. (28.02.2014)

The brutality suits the noir-themed crime stories well. On the journey for revenge, Gibson, as a tough guy with a steel gaze, loves a beautiful prostitute, seeks out a traitor, and encounters - uh - a sadistic dominatrix leading an Asian gang. I can't remember the last time I used that word, but Payback is a cool movie, with a perfect cold look, and some scenes are amazingly uncompromising in their brutality, but unfortunately, everything is always just tough, and throughout the whole time, I didn't experience any significant twist that would have affected me in any way. Helgeland relies on stylish form, but the essence constantly eludes him. (11.06.2007)