Max Payne [UK] 20th Century Fox

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Max Payne is yet another film to join the ever-swelling ranks of game-to-movie adaptations that sound fairly promising in their conception, but end up being absolutely terrible.

Based on Remedy Entertainment's bestselling and critically acclaimed 2001 game Max Payne, the film tells the story of the titular New York cop (Mark Wahlberg), who is haunted by the murder of his wife and daughter three years before.

He is now eking out a living in the cold case unit after transferring from the homicide when his family were killed, still desperately trying to find out who was responsible for their deaths.

He discovers the murders have something to do with 'Valkyr', a drug first given to soldiers that bestows super-human strength and courage on users, but also has horrible side-effects - namely seeing winged aparations and experiencing psychotic rage.

In many, many ways, Max Payne closely resembles the similarly appalling game adaptation Hitman, which came out last year.

Its behind you! Wahlberg as Max Payne.


As with Hitman star Timothy Olyphant, Max Payne completely underuses its talented (if occasionally awful) leading man Mark Wahlberg. As his superb turn as the foul-mouthed Staff Sergeant Dignam in The Departed shows, Marky Mark can play cynical, hard-bitten cops in his sleep. Max Payne gives him virtually nothing to work with however, so Wahlberg reverts back to blank-faced-monosyllabic ways as he solemnly intones the deadly dull dialogue.

One of the reasons the Max Payne game was such a critical hit was because it pushed forward the boundaries for believable character dialogue - as well as for the wry sense of humour running throughout. How ironic and disappointing then the film sheds these qualities, replacing them with reams of boring exposition that gets bogged down in the run-of-the-mill thriller plot.

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This over-plotting also emphasises Max Payne's other huge problem, namely the (relative) lack of actual action, especially early on. It was actually quite insulting that a film adapted from a game that ultimately revolved around stalking through subways and blowing away bad guys in glorious slow-motion with a pump-action shotgun, didn't actually have a proper action scene until an hour into the movie.