With his wife and child dead and his job stagnant, Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) gives up everything he has left to go after and take down the ruthless killers. Payne a renegade detective, who has been relegated to filing duties, infiltrates the criminal underground in attempts of finding those who wrecked his life. While seeking out information, Payne is linked to a pair of heinous murders; his goal becomes not only solving his wife’s death but also clearing his name.
This video game adaptation is somewhat difficult to understand at first. The plot moves along slowly, with a lot of things happening and little to no explanation for them. Without going into any spoilers, I promise the end does tie everything together fairly well. Payne has a lot of depth as a character. It is a shame that they didn’t delve deeper into his life in this one because he is very worthwhile individual. Luckily for us after the end credits role it is hinted that a sequel is in the near future.
I have never played the game but I felt that Wahlberg did a more than able job filling the role. It was also very interesting to see Mila Kunis in something other than a comedic role. I think the film has the same feel of comic book films such as Sin City and definitely plays off the themes found in early film noir. Giving both the characters an interesting environment to work in and watch them from.
This film is by no means special and probably is not even worth seeing in theaters however I think with a sequel just around the bend, the series has a lot of potential. So for this movie my rating isn’t great but I don’t think you should dismiss it because the best is yet to come. Overall I give it 2 and ½ “R’s” out of 5.
