Max
Payne
The title alone should earn this movie negative
Waffles.
Mark Wahlberg stars as Max Payne – a cold case detective
trying to solve the mysterious murder of his wife and child
(where’s Charles Bronson when you need him?). Every night, he
goes out to find new clues and new leads, but this night is different.
Max meets up with a (HOT) Russian woman, Natasha (Olga Kurylenko), who
ends up murdered so our tortured hero becomes the number one suspect
and it turns out Natasha’s sister, Mona (Mila Kunis), is some
sort of assassin who wants revenge.
 How does all of this tie in
with Max’s search for his wife’s killer?
As the conspiracy grows and the clichés pile up faster than
mudslinging attacks during a presidential campaign, Max Payne
becomes a
movie that feels like it was written by a 14-year old boy with a copy
of the Anarchist
Cookbook, a pile of X-Files
episodes on
DVD and desire to sneak a peak at late night programming on Cinemax.
Every predictable moment and element is here as writer Beau
Thorne (based on the video game from Sam Lake) and director John Moore
give us
everything you feared Max Payne would become, and every boy 12
– 16 years old hoped it would be.
We have the hot, scantily clad Russian chick writhing around to get
Max’s attention, all sorts of “cool” slow
motion violence, people with weird tattoos, other people having fights
in the rain, a
renegade cop breaking the rules to get to the truth, loud music and it
goes on and on. Moore is interested in the visuals more than the
substance, so substance doesn’t enter into the equation as
Max Payne is overly simple, full
of ridiculous dialogue, and features a
hero who picks up on clues 15 minutes after every member of the
audience already has.
Did Wahlberg read the script, or was it hidden under the pile of money
that the producers dropped at his door step? Of course, we are set up
for a sequel if you stick around during the credits, so get ready for
Maxer Payne.
Max Payne is rated PG-13 Rated
PG-13 for violence including intense shooting sequences, drug content,
some sexuality and brief strong language.
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