- About Max Payne, on the day his family was murdered: "He was, maybe, ten minutes too late." - About me, on the day I sat down to see this movie: "He was around one hour forty-three minutes too early." Whoever Mark Wahlberg's agent is, dude needs to get dragged to the back of the woodshed. Wahlberg's film choices in '08 have not been what you'd call career friendly. Firstly, M. Night Shamalamadingdong screwed the pooch with THE HAPPENING, and then there's this skunker. I haven't ever played the MAX PAYNE video game, and, truth is, this cinematic adaptation is just the kind of thing which might put off potential players of the game. MAX PAYNE the movie is so @$#%! bad that I'm compelled to inject punctuation marks to emphasize how truly bad it is. Wahlberg over the years has built up a rep for good acting; dude was even recently Oscar-nominated for his role in THE DEPARTED. He's not the worse thing in MAX PAYNE, but it sure doesn't help that he sleepwalks thru his role. Mostly, he rolls with one expression, which is this frozen, sorta pained look, as if his co-actors were always breaking wind around him. Wahlberg is NYPD Detective Max Payne, currently toiling away in the lowly Cold Case Department, pretty much relegated to "glorified file clerk" duties. Echoing the back story of the Punisher, the Crow and others of that dark ilk, Max's wife and baby had been murdered and Max won't rest until he gets his ungodly smite on. But the trail is cold, the clues are faint. Max has withdrawn into himself and has alienated pretty much everyone around him, including his one-time cop partner, who Max thinks hasn't done enough in solving the case. Some headway is finally made when a connection is unearthed between the murder of Max's family and the recent slaying of a slinky party girl whom Max had the night before taken home. And when Max's partner is brutally whacked, Max himself becomes the primary suspect. Vaguely teaming up with Mona Sax (Mila Kunis), a Russian assassin and the vengeful sister of the slain girl, Max haunts New York's criminal underworld, tangling with fellow badges, a shady pharmaceutical corporation, and homocidal drugged-out thugsters. But what gets me is that, the whole time, Wahlberg carries that same vaguely distressed expression. What, did the film's catering make it Burrito Night every night? The SIN CITY-inspired visuals look good, no doubt, and there are even several flashy bullet time sequences. But, in a way, that cheeses me ever more, because, seems to me, if the filmmakers can pay so much attention on the special effects and the slick cinematography, why couldn't they focus just a smidgen on the story, which is always the most crucial component? As it is, MAX PAYNE dies a slow, agonizing death, the final verdict rendering it a thing of style over substance, some lipstick on a pig, moonlight on a pile of poo. All the way thru, the film persists in its bad choices. The pace is sluggish, the script is all over the place, and characters walk on and off the screen like you're supposed to already know who they are (and I guess you would if you've played the game). But, for too much time, I wasn't clear on exactly who that cat was being played by a doughy-looking Chris McDonnell (who I guess wreaked havoc on Burrito Nights). The camera several times makes it a point to briefly cut to McDonnell's nervous mug, but until his big office scene, not much detail is provided regarding this guy, leaving me vexed and musing who the hell is this doofus? And what was the deal with the old woman who happens to be CEO of that dubious pharmaceutical company? Just how deep was she into shady shenanigans? The film leaves us in the dark. It's stuff like that, which smacks of lack of attention to detail, which helps to torpedo the film. Mila Kunis simply feels out of place. Worsely, she isn't given much to do, other than occasionally spit some Russian dialogue and saunter with flair in her leathers and big, big gun. Olga Kurylenko, the latest Bond girl, shows up for a nanosecond, but then I think her agent called with some pointed career advice. Hip hop artist Ludacris shows up and tries to sink into his role and get serious about acting, except that when your character's name is Lt. J. Bravura, who're you really foolin'? Beau Bridges is also here, probably having told his little brother "Whatever you can do, blah blah blah." But he's got nothing on Jeff. The trailers cheated us into thinking that there actually may be an otherworldy element to this thing, in the form of creepy shadow angels skittering about. Except that they turn out to be mere side-effects of this experimental hallucinatory drug, which by the way happens to be at the crux of this whole mess. There's a dispirited, soul-numbing tone in MAX PAYNE which wore on me and put me in a bleak mood (I was this close to putting on black clothes and a beret, changing my name to Olaf, and composing poetry that neither rhymed nor made sense). For folks who relish wallowing in that sort of emotional scene, stick around until after the credits for one last scene which, O Unfathomable God, may be setting up for a possible sequel. The DVD offers two versions of the film, the theatrical version and the unrated version. If you're wondering which one to see, hint: the theatrical version is SHORTER. To be fair, the last half hour does pick up the pace as the filmmakers finally shake themselves out of their stupor and realize that, hey, this is supposed to be an action thriller. So, that's something. But, for Mark Wahlberg's sake, THE BRAZILIAN JOB can't come fast enough.