Payback

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Payback has a completely different spirit from "L.A. Confidential'' -- more wild, more silly -- but it has the same attention to the fine points of plot and character.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Helgeland's film positively seethes with bad vibrations; it's kicky, nasty urban sangfroid with pointy little teeth and a serious case of the angries, an existential hand grenade disguised as a heist film.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

While there's quite a bit more graphic bloodshed and brutality here than in any of the late screen icon's vehicles, Payback is a worthy '90s successor to his kind of movie.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There is much cleverness and ingenuity in Payback, but Mel Gibson is the key. The movie wouldn't work with an actor who was heavy on his feet, or was too sincere about the material.

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

Helgeland makes a solid debut as director here, finding a new angle through which to view the Parker character, and doing so without exhausting the possibilities.

Film Threat Ron Wells

Rips out at least one dimension to reduce everything to archetypal good guys and bad guys, or bad guy and worse guys.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Payback is a thriller so mean and degraded it carries a low-down, vicious charge. Sadism is its only real subject, and its only real life as well.

USA Today Mike Clark

Marvin leavened his sociopathy with a hint of little boy naivete or innocence -- Gibson is merely a frequently funny thug. {5 February 1999, Life, p. 11E]

LA Weekly John Patterson

Helgeland strips the material back to its pulp origins and overlays it with a patina of glib motifs familiar to devotees of Hollywood’s 1970s renaissance.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

That script – co-written by Terry Hayes and director Brian Helgeland – is almost too noir for its own good at times, but Gibson somehow manages to pull its implausibility off.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Payback is a brutally entertaining crime drama that should have been a little more brutal and a little less entertaining.

Variety Emanuel Levy

Not an embarrassment, but it's not distinguished, either.

Newsweek Jeff Giles

Payback may not always be P.C., but it's not interested in making friends, anyway. Just killing enemies.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

In the last third, Payback turns into a joke.

Slate David Edelstein

The only moments of conviction come from an Asian-American dominatrix called Pearl (Lucy Liu), who brings far more glee to the task of beating people up than the picture's star or director. If the audience could have half as much fun as Pearl is having, Payback would be a kick.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Has the makings of that rarest of ventures, an adaptation that is true to the spirit of the original as well as its own time and place. But as Payback wends its way toward its conclusion, its promise dissipates and its pleasures wane.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

The comic timing and Gibson's mugging are skillful, but the movie fulfills expectations of plot twists and ironic atmosphere only after having made clear that it won't be offering much else.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It careens from coarse comedy to smart-ass stylization to vicious violence without ever becoming convincing on any level.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Consider that in “Point Blank,” Lee Marvin walks through the film with the look of a man who's lost his soul. You can see it in his eyes. Look in Gibson's eyes in this one and you'll see soullessness, but it doesn't seem to come from anywhere within his character.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The idea may sound like fun, but the movie isn't. It's a travesty of a picture that's a disgrace to the memory of the great film from which it's remade. [5 February 1999, Friday, po.A]

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

An interesting cast is wasted in this misanthropic thriller.

San Francisco Examiner Walter Addiego

So it's hard to know who gets the blame for Payback. I say we cut Mel some slack and put the hex on Helgeland.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

We're supposed to adore Gibson's sang-froid and his toughness, but everything, a few good lines aside, is so witless and monotonous it becomes numbing.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

What one word might best describe Payback? How about "loathsome"?