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Movie Review by The Gravedigger
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01.12.10
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This movie is much different then I would have thought from seeing the previews, which make it seem like a surreal fantasy like DAYWATCH or THE SPIRIT. It's really a revenge film noir that has some very cool nightmare/drug induced scenes.
Detective Max Payne's (Mark Wahlberg) wife and newborn baby were killed during a break in robbery to his home. He managed to shoot two of the people but the third one got away. Now, years later, he's relegated to working in the police department's filing room. Yet he's still trying to solve his wife's murder.
His former partner gets a clue, which leads him to an underground bar. There he meets a girl who he takes back to his apartment. When she leaves she's attacked by something and the police find his wallet amongst her ripped and dismembered body.
He learns that it may involve a new street drug which makes people feel invincible. However, a side-effect of this are bad hallucinations of angels and demons. The dead girl's sister, Mona, thinks he's somehow responsible at first, but ends up teaming up with him.
Payne ultimately finds out that the pharmaceutical company his wife worked for is responsible for her death--and for creating this drug. At one point Max is left for dead in the icy East River and the only way he can recover--and hope for revenge, is to take that drug, though it may kill him. At this point there are some very cool images, of a sky on fire and dark winged demons/angels flying about. Yet it's implied that all this is in his (and the others') minds, not that they are seeing another dimension or anything like that.
I'm not sure how this compares to the video game upon which it is based but as an action thriller it works very well.
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Rating: 5.8 out of 10.0 - 4 votes cast total
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