As you know, I make my living as a master villain. Recently I decided to

try my hand at weather control, having enjoyed my first glimpse of the

AVENGERS trailer. If it's good enough for Connery, it's good enough for me. My

first step in turning the seasons inside out was to see a screening of one of

next summer's high profile pictures now. The film? PAYBACK.

Once again, my henchmen and I stormed the Paramount lot, kicking over

the security kiosk and generally causing terror and confusion all around us.

I was in a bit of a fistfighting, asskicking, take no shit kind of mood

because PAYBACK is, after all, a remake of one of the great asskicking take no

shit kind of films, POINT BLANK. For those of you sad enough to have never

seen the original, it's one of the highlights of John Boorman's career and

features one of Lee Marvin's best tough guy performances. In RESERVOIR DOGS,

when Michael Madsen says to Harvey Keitel, "I bet you're a big Lee Marvin

fan," it's films like POINT BLANK he's talking about.

For that reason, I was highly sceptical going in. I figured there was

no way Brian Helgeland could come anywhere near the mood and the brutality of

the original. With the (very) notable exception of LA CONFIDENTIAL, I'm

still fairly unimpressed by Helgeland. Or at least, I was.

PAYBACK changed that.

Now, this isn't going to make any "10 Best" lists next year, and it's

not a deep movie by any means. Mel Gibson plays a guy named Porter (not

Parker -- his name in the book), who is involved in a robbery with Gregg Henry

(the blonde guy from all the DePalma movies) and Deborah Kara Unger (from

CRASH and THE GAME). They double cross him, shoot him full of holes, and leave

him for dead. Bad idea. Very, very bad idea.

The movie actually starts a few years after that incident as Porter

rolls back into town. Just from the opening credits you know that this is not your

average Mel Gibson role. He's a genuinely bad guy. He steals a handful

of money from a homeless guy, lifts some businessman's wallet, stiffs a

waitress for breakfast and steals her cigarettes to boot, buys a suit with a

stolen credit card, goes shopping and pawns the watches he buys, gets a Magnum,

and all of this is just while the credits are playing. He immediately

searches out Unger, his wife. She's a junkie now, and takes the easy way out.

Instead of telling him where his ex-partner is, she O.D.s. Her death is the

last straw, and Porter sets out to extract very messy revenge on his partner

and to get his half of the money, a mere $70,000. Even if he has to kill every

single person in "The Outfit," he is determined to get the money back.

The story isn't the draw here. It's the vibe that Helgeland has managed

to create. Much like LA CONFIDENTIAL, he paints a vivid portrait of sleaze

and moral decay. This is the seediest studio picture I've seen since TO

LIVE OR DIE IN LA. Even the theater floor feels stickier while watching this

thing unfold. The supporting cast in uniformly excellent, all of them in on

the gag. William Devane and James Coburn are the two bosses of The Outfit,

and they both do bang-up jobs. Devane in particular is a scene stealer.

Gregg Henry, who I've always liked in the DePalma films over the years (you

all know him -- the guy whose house Craig Wasson is watching in BODY DOUBLE),

gives a hell of a performance here. He's a total scumbag S&M freak, and his

"love" scenes with Lucy Liu, a dynamite Asian actress who you WILL remember

after this picture, are hysterical and raunchy and deeply sleazy. Henry

deserves to start doing more work again based on his efforts here. David Paymer and

Bill Dukes both show up and do good if not inspired work. The women in the

film are, as is normally the case, given a little less to do, but both Unger

and Maria Bello (from TV's ER) manage to register in their brief screen

time. In a definite nod to the original POINT BLANK, Angie Dickinson even has a

cameo, but I won't tell you where.

Helgeland isn't going to blow anyone's mind with his directorial hand,

but it's a solid debut and he seems to know what he's doing. There's a

shootout in an alley involving Porter and a Range Rover full of Asian thugs that

is a hoot, and most of the casual brutality manages to elicit both laughs and

groans, a skillful combination.

Now... Harry, I don't like to get up on a soapbox here, but I have to.

You see, Paramount didn't listen to me the last time I sent you a review.

When I saw THE TRUMAN SHOW, I knew it would be a hard sell. I tried to help

them out by giving them a tag line -- "It's a whole lot of world for just one

man" -- (a bit of dialogue from the movie, damn it) and by telling them what

worked. Sell it as a drama. Don't be afraid of it. "From the director of DEAD

POETS SOCIETY." How hard can it be?

I need to try again now. The best part of PAYBACK was the temp track

score that they had in place. Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, was this a great

temp track. It was made up of some of the best bits of '70s action/cop movie

music -- a little TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3, a little DIRTY HARRY, a smidgen of

BULLITT, and a heaping helping of the Beastie Boys, all stirred up

together. Paramount, I have to beg you now... BUY THE DAMN MUSIC! EVERY DAMN NOTE

OF IT! This is one of the great uses of film music that I've seen recently.

Let it stand as a tribute to the music of guys like Lalo Schifrin. You can't

improve on the mood of the film I saw. If you hire someone like James Horner or

Alan Silvestri or David Arnold, you'll just get a pale imitation of what we

heard tonight. Go ahead... spring for it. Quentin Tarantino liked the temp

track stuff he used from COFFEY enough that he bought it and left it in JACKIE

BROWN. Helgeland used this stuff for a reason -- IT WORKS! The track

from DIRTY HARRY is so damn perfect that one of my henchmen actually came out

of his seat, yelling from excitement.

This isn't going to be a crossover hit. Mel's too damn unlikeable.

This is going to be a movie for guys who love movies about tough guys. Do the

right thing... buy the temp track. Make this movie as cool for everyone as it

was for us tonight.

Anyway, Harry, I'll get off my soapbox now. Paramount has heard my

command. If they choose to ignore me, then they'll have to cope with a crime wave