Review: Max Payne

Be that as it may, in these times of shocking violence and unimaginable devastation, Max Payne doesn’t exactly make for recommended viewing, writes Rashid Irani.

Max Payne

HT Image

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis

Direction: John Moore

Rating: **

Once, there was the classic jawbreaker Mad Max about a leather-suited Mel Gibson seeking revenge against the punk killers of his wife and child. Now there’s Max Payne incarnated by Mark Wahlberg going through the same motions of scowling, frowning and staring hard into the camera lens.

Directed by John Moore, this adaptation of a video game brims over with clichés, complete with dark alleys where any form of danger could strike at any moment. And, there’s some kind of nightmare drug which gives birth to bullet-proof ghouls and turns the opposition into ninnies. In other words, anything goes.

Ten minutes into the travails of Max and we want to ask -- what’s going on? Bad question actually. Because the answer is that our eponymous Max Payne -- with a surname that’s very vulnerable to punning -- is prowling through fashionably dark and monochrome streets to blow the brains out of those who exterminated his family.

In this time-honoured task, he is assisted by a Russian woman of action (Mila Kunis) who has her own agenda. She’s desperately seeking revenge for the killing of her sister (Olga Kurylenko, the Quantum Bond girl). To appeal to the youth segment, rapper Luducris shows up as a top brass cop. Sorry but that really doesn’t help to make the film any more palatable or perky.

Be that as it may, in these times of shocking violence and unimaginable devastation, Max Payne doesn’t exactly make for recommended viewing.