Posts tagged Max Payne

Max Payne (John Moore, 2008) is the film of a detective whose hope of solving the case of his wife’s murder is slowly diminishing. When he is dragged into the case of another womans death links lead him back on the trail of his wife’s murder.

I surprisingly enjoyed this film. It’s not usually a genre of film I enjoy. Of course it turns out that the death of his wife is part of some big conspiracy cover-up. So the film is the journey of Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) trying to unravel this cover up. Max Payne begins his journey when his wallet is found at the crime scene of a womans death and his ex-partner is found dead in his apartment. After much investigation Max notices a link between the deaths and the Pharmaceutical company Aesir. As it turns out Aesir was involved in manufacturing drugs for soldiers to overcome their anxiety in war. Unfortunately most the test subjects suffered severe hallucinations, with a very small minority becoming stronger soldiers. Towards the end of the film it turns out BB (Beau Bridges) an old friend was behind the death of Max’s wife and BB attempts to tie up all the loose ends leading him to attempt to murder Max Payne. A scene we are shown at the beginning of the movie but without the explanation. Max manages to allude death however to give him the strength to get revenge on BB he must take the drug Aesir was manufacturing for the soldiers. This leads Max through some painful hallucinations on his rampage to kill BB. The films ends with Max finally killing BB and finally at peace. One aspect I didn’t get, possibly because I’m not intelligent to realise, was when we see the stock rises of Aesir. I didn’t get it’s relevance or the reason for the looks between the characters when we see this information.

Some of the effects in this movie, essentially the hallucinations, are bit annoying like for me it disturbed the whole effect of the film, however, the textures and noir feel was quite effective. The casting was reasonable, it took a bit of imagination for some characters but I think the film as a whole made up for the under par cast.

The story of the film was actually really interesting and well executed. I’ve noticed with the past few film reviews, the narrative has fallen apart but this film is an exception. I’m not sure if others would agree with me but I quite enjoyed the film. It really surprised me. I went into the film expecting to hate it and some aspects were below average but the film was still a good watch. I would actually recommend this film but with some warnings such as don’t expect a brilliant cast. So I don’t have much else to say it’s been a really short review, hopefully next weeks will be longer.