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List Price: $29.99 | | Label: Paramount Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 7616
Released: April 10, 2007 |
| Our Price: $10.94 |
| Used Price: $7.98 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: HD DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Paramount Payback - HD-DVD
Mel Gibson portrays Porter, a career criminal bent on revenge after his partnersin a street heist pump metal into him and take off with his $70,000 cut. Bad move, thugs. Because if you plan to double-cross Porter, you'd better make sure he's dead. Porter resurfaces, wading into a lurid urban underworld of syndicate kingpins, cops on the take, sniveling informants and deadly gangs. Porter wants his money back. And the way he sets out to get is assures that, from beginning to heartpounding end, Payback pays off big.
Description of Payback - Straight Up - The Director's Cut [HD DVD]:
There were reasons writer-director Brian Helgeland's cut of Payback was dismissed by distributors Paramount and Warner Bros., then heavily re-shot and re-tooled by Mel Gibson's production company, Icon Entertainment. Those reasons are explained in detail by Gibson, Helgeland, and others in the special features of Payback: The Director's Cut (Special Collector's Edition). Among them: Helgeland's version was too dark. America wasn't ready in 1999 to see Gibson play an unapologetic, 1970s-style antihero who might not get exactly what he wants. Audiences didn't have the patience to wait for answers to their story questions. A dog dies. (A big no-no.) All of these comments make sound, practical sense. But here's the bottom line: Helgeland's cut, perhaps even a bit more disciplined and taut (according to Payback’s editor, Kevin Stitt) than it was in 1999, is a serious movie with an organic tone and logic that makes the film look the way it was meant to look: as a neo-noir film for adults. The theatrical release of Payback, by contrast, was and is silly and vulgar, self-sabotaging, pointlessly vicious, and perversely jaunty. It is very much like--deliberately like--the Lethal Weapon series. The Director’s Cut makes clear that’s not at all what Helgeland had in mind.
Kudos to Gibson and Icon for giving Helgeland a chance to restore his film and get it out on this DVD. But a look at both versions (this disc does not include the theatrical cut) back-to-back can certainly make one's head spin. Icon’s revisions in the original release show little faith in a contemporary audience’s ability to discern much about a story or mood or character from spare but telling details. That film relies on crass swatches of voiceover narration, cute inserts, added scenes, and hipster tunes on the soundtrack. All of that was designed to tell an audience how to feel rather than encourage a cinematic experience encountered with an open heart and mind. Worst of all is a specious third act nakedly built around an obligatory Gibson-gets-tortured sequence, leading the film to a lazy, comforting conclusion. The Director’s Cut eschews all of that. Gibson’s character, Porter (based on the central character in the novel "The Hunter," written by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark), is a man returning from the brink of death with nothing but his identity and the memory of something (an almost-nominal amount of money) taken from him. His iron determination, his capacity for brutality and inducing fear, and his survival instinct make him anything but warm and cuddly. It's his few ties to the past--especially an interrupted relationship with a call girl (Maria Bello)--that humanize him. One doesn't have to like Porter; one just accepts him and follows his journey in an honest, unmitigated fashion. That’s exactly what Helgeland does, and his cleaner, leaner, smarter cut is instantly rewarding for its uncompromising, undistracted toughness. Special features include a documentary about the film’s history, and a wonderful interview with Westlake. --Tom Keogh
Payback - Straight Up - The Director's Cut [HD DVD] Reviews:
Watch the theatrical release instead 
2008-09-03 - Warning: Spoiler alert. I was not impressed with the rework of this movie. And the fact that it doesn't include the original theatrical release made me even less impressed. They lose the voiceover in this version and simplify the plot. Kris Kristofferson's character is completely eliminated and the kidnapping of his son is gone as a result. The end of the movie is simple: Meet the bad guys and kill them for the money. Any of the cleverness of Mel Gibson's character is gone and all that's left is his brutality. Forget this version and watch the original.
Not good.
2008-08-26 - I LOVE Payback... the theatrical release. One of the scenes that stand out the most to me - is when Mel gets his toes crushed by a sledge hammer. This version... does not have that. In fact there are a couple people that he kills in the theatrical version - that dont die in this one. This version was a disappoinment to say the least.
Pay Back in HD directors cut 
2008-08-25 - I saw this movie when first released and thought it was another great movie with Mel Gibson a good thriller with some action and a great payback so bought the standard DVD and now the HD Directors Cut DVD four and a half out of five Recommended .
Theatrical release much better the Director's Cut
2008-08-16 - The ending for the Theatrical release of Payback is much better than the Director's Cut. To top that off the Director's Cut does not even contain the Theatrical release ending. Wish I could return it for the Theatrical release, but I'll just have to buy the Theatrical release and dump this somewhere else...
Straight up outstanding!
2008-08-08 - This is almost a completely different film from the theatrical release (which I thoroughly enjoyed) Gone is the voice over and in it's place is an implied narrative that needs no explanation. Porter is a bad man. But he has principles. And he has no problem whatsoever in following those principles with an almost single-minded focus. The last act has none of the elements of the theatrical release. Which to me, is a vast improvement. Honestly, the version I saw in the theaters just seemed a little too... Martin Riggs. Which is not bad, but when it's supposed to be a completely different character in a completely different universe, it just doesn't seem right. Especially after watching the Director's Cut. I highly recommend watching both and making up your own mind.
