Payback vs. Point Blank
The harder, blunter version of Brian Helgeland's almost eight-year-old Payback is coming out on Paramount Home Video in March '07, and it'll also show at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in late January. A good guy gave me a VHS of it a few days ago; I watched some of it this morning. It's smart and amusing in spurts, and I guess it's an improvement of sorts...but its not much of one. I found it a little too dour. That's one way of saying I still prefer John Boorman's Point Blank, the 1967 noir classic.
Both are based on Donald Westlake's "The Hunter." Mel Gibson plays the hardball avenger in Helgeland's version; Lee Marvin played the same guy in Point Blank . But the names...my God. Westlake's character was called "Parker." Marvin's is called "Walker" -- good metaphor, self-sufficient traveller, man on a journey -- but Gibson's is called "Porter." That sounds subservient, timid...the name of an accountant.
I've recorded dialogue from a portion of the same scene in both films. The Point Blank version is between Lloyd Bochner's Carter and John Vernon's Mal Reese; the Payback version is between William Devane 's Carter and Gregg Henry's Val Resnick (same as Reese). Notice how much more lean and direct the Boor- man version sounds, and how tedious it feels when Henry half-jokes about not knowing Porter's first name.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 23, 2006 at 11:35 AM
comment #1
Movie fan09
says ...
look at the way they both stand.
While walker is more desperate looking, he is still in control...he looks real overall.
Porter looks like Mel Gibson holding guns.
Posted by Movie fan09
at November 23, 2006 4:51 PM
comment #2
JWEgo
says ...
a good guy gave you a copy=
only you could call somebody who IGNORED THE LAW by giving you a tape a good guy.
THIS is why studios ignore you.
I know _ I am your Ego.
Posted by JWEgo
at November 24, 2006 9:38 AM
comment #3
RoyBatty
says ...
Generational thing - everytime I heard "Porter" I thought of steak and as Gibson become further roughed up as the film progressed, it became more & more apt. There's even the line from Kristopherson when they are hammering his toes: "Looks like roast beef." So, a good chance is that it was intentional.
In other words, you didn't get it. It was meant for generations that have not seen the original and grew up in an era without porters.
Curious to see how different the last 20 minutes plays out as that was the let down of the remake. That after being fairly brutally nihlistic, it sorta punked out at the end.
Just hope that scene in the trailer with the female assasin is not in the director's cut - can't see how that would work in relation to the movie.
Posted by RoyBatty
at November 24, 2006 11:37 AM