Year: 2007
Runtime: 90 min
Director: Eric Norris
Starring: Christopher Atkins, Costas Mandylor, Angie Everhart, Wendy Norton, Laura Lane, Nicole LeVoy.
Everything happens for a reason, at least that’s something I like to believe. Everything is created with intent, especially art, when it is forged within the fire of creativity, awaiting its shape so that it might be seated upon a pedestal and gift us with its higher purpose.
And the purpose of Payback was most likely a tax write-off of some kind.
First of all, I’m not talking about this Payback, or that Payback, but this Payback. Yeah, I can only imagine the unimaginative title was an attempt to bury this dull little movie and assure total failure.
Let’s begin with what this film is not. It is not an action movie, despite being directed by Eric Norris (yes, the son of THAT Norris, Mr. Roundhouse Kick himself) who is mostly known in the industry as a stunt coordinator. It is also not a character-driven revenge film because the characters have as much depth as a sheet of onion skin parchment. It is not a good movie. It’s not even a fun bad movie. It is a monumental waste of time and talent.
And yes, there is genuine talent wasted in this movie, but more on that in a moment.
The plot is as razor thin as anything that has graced an episode of your favorite crime drama, the difference being that those shows only try to amuse you for forty minutes at a time, whereas Payback decides you want to sit through an hour-and-a-half of mindless nothing.
Ten years ago, a cop’s partner is killed during a sting gone wrong. The criminal in question is caught and sent to jail. This occupies an absurd amount of time when it could have been covered with a ten minute flashback. Better films have covered the same ground.
So, ten years come and go, our ex-cop is now living on a ranch outside Las Vegas, dealing with an estranged wife and a teenage daughter. Life is quiet and boring, but then our villain somehow escapes from prison by barfing up a magic key and shooting a couple cops. He then sets out on a path of revenge…perhaps even PAYBACK.
And dear lord, I know the guy is supposed to have a limp thanks to our hero’s efforts, but does he have to be so damn slow about his business? Costas Mandylor plays the villain like he’s just escaped a dentist’s chair, not prison, mumbling through his lines and very slowly limping across the sets as though the Novocain has yet to wear off.
He gets his Harley Quinn-esque girlfriend back to help in his mission of revenge and though Laura Lane tries to make the most of her psychotic role, the writing is so flat it’s like drinking off-brand cola that has been left on the shelf for too long. Instead of giving her any interesting lines they just went down a checklist that said:
- Is she blond?
- Does she wear leather?
- Does she have a big knife?
- Is she a sex offender?
Once every box was ticked, they added a couple lines of dialog, patted each other on the back, and called it a day.
None of the other characters received much better treatment.
Our hero, the ex-cop, is played by the skilled Christopher Atkins, who you may remember from The Blue Lagoon. And if not, just ask your mother about it. Or, jeez, grandmother maybe? Has it really been that long? I feel so old…
Either way, aside from Atkins and Mandylor, we also get a surprisingly good attempt from Angie Everhart as Atkin’s estranged wife. She doesn’t have a lot to work with, but she tries, oh she tries. And frankly, she does liven up her scenes with a nice professional quality that is sorely missing from this production.
The entire movie feels like it was a student film. From the bland locales to the shot-on-digital appearance of the scenes, everything just looks cheap. The lighting varies from acceptable to bad and shots are so close there’s often only room for one actor’s head and nostril to occupy the frame. Dialog is mostly exposition and bad exposition at that and the music is dreadful.
There are so few thrills in this supposed thriller that it feels more like the dialog scenes in a porno. Actually, that’s an apt description, because there is a fair bit of nudity sprinkled about. Nothing too extreme or sleazy, but we get some topless ladies, including a scene where Atkins teenage daughter (who we are quickly assured is 18 years old and you therefore only need to feel reasonably icky) shoots a few lusty, Sapphic glances at her mother’s young friend in the shower.
Honestly, this scene was so out of left field I started scripting up what I thought the filmmakers were doing. Ah ha, I said, feeling like a clever boy, this woman is actually one of Mandylor’s accomplices, and she intends to fulfill the dated and nasty trope of the predatory lesbian, seducing the innocent young daughter so she can lead her into danger.
But I out-thought the movie in this case. Apparently, this scene was just a young lady flirting with her budding bisexuality with a receptive older woman. In fact, it’s shocking how matter-of-fact this moment actually is. Sure, it’s still played for the heterosexual eye to ogle, but it’s done without judgment. I guess kudos?
The rest of the movie is worthy of judgment. And very unkind judgment at that.
For a man who has spent the bulk of his career as a stunt coordinator, Eric Norris delivers a timid, Z-grade film that features a grand total of two stunt men and exactly one fight scene. And frankly, the precursor to this showdown, in which Angie Everhart smacks the ever loving crap out of Mandylor with a 2×6, is far more entertaining than the actual brawl between Mandylor and Atkins.
I could fill the next two or three paragraphs with all the loose plot threads the movie leaves for the credits, but why bother? Suffice to say that we are left, once the credits arrive, with a tangential character caught in limbo between life and death, but the movie doesn’t care to wrap that up with even a quick three second scene or brief mention as to their status. And if the movie doesn’t care to finish what it starts, than that should tell you more than enough about its quality.
Man, I’d love to talk to Norris and the producers to learn just what the mindset was while they made this mess. Maybe I’d learn a thing or two about the tax code.
