Payback (1999 film)

Porter, a career thief and former U.S. Marine, lies facedown on the kitchen table in the apartment of an unlicensed doctor, after having been shot twice and betrayed for $70,000. As the doctor uses the whiskey he is drinking as a sterilizing agent for his tools, the bullets, and as anesthesia. He then digs out the bullets, stitches up the open wounds, and then Porter begins making his plans to get the money back and take revenge.

Broke after five months of recuperating, Porter uses a series of petty thefts and short cons to quickly acquire $1,000 in cash, a new suit, a revolver, and a few meals. He then begins tracking down his estranged wife Lynn and former partner-in-crime Val Resnick. In flashbacks, Porter recalls that they betrayed him following a $140,000 heist from local Chinese Triad. Resnick had manipulated Lynn into helping him with a picture showing Porter with another woman, a high-priced call girl named Rosie, and implying that the two were having an affair. Lynn shoots Porter, then she and Resnick leave Porter for dead. Val used the cash to buy his way back into "the Outfit," a local organized crime syndicate, by paying off his outstanding debt of $130,000 to them.

Porter first seeks out his wife, Lynn, out of loyalty to their marriage; however, she has been consumed by guilt and become addicted to heroin. Porter attempts to help her sober up by confining her and confiscating her drugs, but the next morning he finds her dead from an overdose using a hidden stash. Believing that Resnick was funding her drug habit, Porter interrogates Lynn's drug connection, who points him towards Resnick's middle-man, Arthur Stegman, a sleazy drug, muscle, and weapons supplier for the bottom rung of the criminal underworld. Porter finds Stegman in the company of two corrupt police detectives, Hicks and Leary, who threaten him for a share of the $70,000, once he acquires it.

Using Stegman's information, Porter enlists the help of Rosie, who is now affiliated with the Outfit. Rosie agrees, revealing that she still cares about Porter from when he was her bodyguard; Porter agrees, and the two lament that they never moved forward with their relationship, as they were each repelled by the others' career and Porter could not abandon Lynn. Rosie tells Porter that he can track Resnick through his employ of specialty prostitutes, as he is barred from soliciting Outfit call girls because his sadistic tendencies nearly killed one of them.

Porter finds Resnick during a session with a Triad-connected dominatrix named Pearl, when Porter ambushes him and demands his money. Fearful, Resnick later begs the Outfit for help but is told to solve his own problems. He then uses Pearl to frame Porter for the $140,000 heist so the Triads will kill him; however, this attempt fails. Resnick follows Porter's trail to Rosie's apartment, and beats and threatens to rape her when she fights back, as well as demanding to know Porter's whereabouts. Porter arrives and wounds Resnick, who attempts to bargain for his life by giving him the names of the Outfit bosses Fairfax and Carter; since Resnick does not have the money, Porter kills him. He takes Rosie to a safe house, only to find that it is now compromised and rigged with plastic explosives, connected to the telephone by three of Carter's hitmen. Porter kills them and later confronts Carter in his own office, threatening to kill him unless he pays the $70,000. Carter states he is only an underboss, thus unauthorized to make financial decisions and calls Bronson, the head of the Outfit. During the negotiation, both Carter and Bronson believe that Porter is demanding the full $130,000 that Resnick paid the Outfit, though Porter repeatedly corrects them that all he wants is his share, which Resnick stole. When Bronson refuses over the phone, Porter carries out his threat and kills Carter. Porter then frames Hicks and Leary by planting Leary's fingerprints on the gun used to kill Resnick, as well as stealing Hicks's badge and leaving it with the gun in Resnick's hand.

With the aid of Rosie, Porter kidnaps Bronson's son, Johnny. He then visits and threatens Fairfax; Hicks and Leary, who are waiting outside Fairfax's house, are promptly arrested by Internal Affairs on account of the false evidence left earlier. A shootout ensues involving Porter, Stegman, his driver, Pearl and the Triads; only Porter and Pearl survive. Porter is held at gunpoint by Pearl which inadvertently causes him to be captured by Fairfax's men; he is taken to a warehouse and beaten for hours. Bronson arrives with his own men and the $130,000 ransom, though he swears that Porter will never lay his hands on it. Porter unsuccessfully tries to reason that all he wanted was the $70,000 that Resnick owed him, but Bronson then authorizes his men to hammer Porter's toes one-by-one, until he reveals Johnny's location; Bronson's men smash two toes before he gives them a location.

Bronson, Fairfax, and their men take Porter with them to investigate the address; however, the address is actually the compromised safe house wired with explosives. While they make their way to the apartment, Porter breaks free through the locked trunk and makes his way to the car's cell phone, and then dials the bomb's trigger just as they enter the room. The explosion kills Bronson, Fairfax, and their men, and Porter flees the scene to contact Rosie. Upon his arrival, Rosie leaves Johnny behind and joins Porter in the car to start new lives together, beginning by "going for breakfast...in Canada."

• Mel Gibson as Porter
• Gregg Henry as Val Resnick
• Maria Bello as Rosie
• Lucy Alexis Liu as Pearl
• Deborah Kara Unger as Lynn Porter
• David Paymer as Arthur Stegman
• Bill Duke as Detective Hicks
• Jack Conley as Detective Leary
• John Glover as Phil
• William Devane as Carter
• James Coburn as Justin Fairfax
• Kris Kristofferson as Bronson
• Trevor St. John as Johnny Bronson
• Freddy Rodriguez as Valet
• Manu Tupou as Pawnbroker

The film was shot from September to November 1997, in Chicago and Los Angeles, though neither city is referred to in the film. Although credited as director, Brian Helgeland's cut of the film was not the theatrical version released to audiences. Helgeland notoriously clashed with producer Gibson over Gibson's ideas for the film. After the end of principal photography, Gibson admitted that he was instrumental in having Helgeland removed as director before the film was released.[5] A script rewrite by Terry Hayes was ordered. There was initially some uncertainty on who directed the reshoots, with some sources claiming it was the production designer John Myhre.[6] However, Paul Abascal has stated on his website that he in fact directed the new scenes.[7] The new director reshot 30% of the film.[8] The intent was to make the Porter character accessible. The film's tagline became: "Get Ready to Root for the Bad Guy." A potentially controversial scene between Porter and Lynn which arguably involves spousal abuse was excised and more plot elements were added to the third act. After 10 days of reshoots, a new opening scene and voiceover track also were added, and Kris Kristofferson walked on as a new villain.[9]

• Payback at IMDb
• Payback: Straight Up at IMDb
• Payback at Box Office Mojo
• Payback at Metacritic
• Payback at Rotten Tomatoes