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List Price: $29.99 | | Label: Paramount Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 48301
Released: April 10, 2007 |
| Our Price: $19.59 |
| Used Price: $8.99 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: HD DVD |
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Editorial Review:
In Brian Helgeland's new director's cut of the film, Mel Gibson portrays Porter, a career criminal bent on revenge after his partners in 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 heart pounding 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:
great! 
2009-11-26 - great- almost as good as the original, vastly different in alot of respects, including the ending.
mobsters, pusher, addicts and w_ores New York style 
2009-11-13 - Here you have dirty cops, addict wives and golden hearted w_ores
against "the outfit" as the new mobsters are calling themselves.
Porter ( no first name) is shot in the back by his wife
after robbing a Chinese Tong crime family of $140000.
Somehow he recovers and is too stubborn stupid to die or take no for an answer.
With all the good and bad guys after him at once, he manages
to survive?
For action junkies this is a good fix, but as drama acting goes it comes short of
a Humphrey Bogart film. I liked the movie, but think that
there was a little to much bloody violence in it.
seriously people you need to know this! 
2009-11-13 - ok people, here's the deal. watch payback. if you really like it, then read richard stark's (donald e westlake) the hunter. THEN watch payback straight up. payback is fun and exciting and kind of funny. the hunter is the novel payback was based off of. very exciting, not fun, not funny. the chinese hit squad, the dirty cops, bronson and his son scenario, the final explosion scene and the love connection with rosie are all absent from the book. bronson and his son and the explosion scene are absent from straight up. the ending is a lot more like the book and the absence of bronson and his son facilitate this alignment with the original literature. they left in the chinese hit squad for fun i'm guessing and rosie because she was in the book and it added a little bit of flavor as well as a way to make the ending a bit more believable (in the book he somehow gets them all!). the dirty cops i have to say were a really cool addition, i kind of missed them in the book (having seen the movie first) but in retrospect it kind of hurt parkers' private quest for vengeance... payback is an amazing film, it introduced me to parker, i am now a parker novel maniac. because of this i wanted to see the somewhat more true to the book directors' cut (straight up) and was very pleased with its somewhat more accurate depiction. i love both films but the point is one will likely only like both if they read the book in between as most who don't think that straight up is to dark and disturbing but this is only because they don't really know parker;) enjoy.
Remake of POINT BLANK
2009-11-12 - The product review mentions that PAYBACK was based on the novel "The Hunter," written by Donald E. Westlake (under the pseudonym Richard Stark). It does not mention that POINT BLANK (1967) was also based on this book, with Lee Marvin in Gibson's role, using the character name of Walker rather than Porter. Marvin's love interest is Angie Dickinson. In the 1967 version, Dickinson is not a call girl, but Walker's sister-in-law who runs a night club. She has unresolved ties with the syndicate that Walker is after. POINT BLANK is a noir film with the standard, austere production values of the late 1960s-early 1970s period. This makes the violence more realistic and brutal. Both films have very strong supporting casts. Marvin is better in the lead role and shows no hint of the humor that Gibson shows from time to time. In 1967 terms, the $93,000 Walker wants back is not as "trivial" as the lesser sum Porter is after over three decades later. While I enjoyed PAYBACK, the original POINT BLANK deserves to be seen as well.
original better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
2009-09-28 - C'mon, the original movie was much better, i love kris kristofersens role in the movie, his arrogance, egotism and and ruggid approach seemed to capture the audience. I wanst crazy about the ending, the dvd should of had both versions on this, not just the directors cut.
Although some of the new scenes did me in such as porter hitting his wife for the crimes that she did against him.
