Noirvember: Payback (1999)

An enjoyable remake of Point Blank (well, a retelling of the tale that Point Blank was based on anyway), featuring Mel Gibson in the lead role of the wronged man out for revenge, and his half of a criminally-acquired stash of money, Payback is a rough ‘n’ tough bit of entertainment that tries to stand out from the crowd by having more ruthless behaviour and bursts of violence than you might expect from a film with such a big star name attached.

Gibson is Porter, a man shot and left for dead after being betrayed during a job that also involved his wife (Deborah Kara Unger) and his best friend (Gregg Henry). Once he starts on his quest to get the money owed to him - not the full amount stolen, just his half - Porter soon finds himself in more and more danger as he has to approach increasingly powerful members of a large criminal organisation.

Directed, for the most part (the production wasn’t exactly smooth sailing), by Brian Helgeland, who also wrote the screenplay, subsequently reworked by Terry Hayes, it’s hard to see why people viewed this as something that needed rescuing. And when I say people I mean “Hollywood suits”. What is here isn’t for everyone, but the same could be said for Point Blank. The fact that the main character is such a shitty person makes it more interesting, especially when you realise that he still has a certain moral code that makes him one of the least shitty people in a world full of much bigger scumbags who inhabit the world he lives in.

Dialogue may not be sharp, and the dour colour palette isn’t exactly a big plus, but plotting is clear, characters are nicely sketched, and Helgeland does some excellent work, knowing what viewers need to see and what they don’t. The unfolding chain of events may be grim, but it’s also somehow still fun . . . right up until it isn’t. And when the fun stops, well, you know the ending is close. You just don’t know if it’s going to be a good or bad ending.

Helgeland helps himself a lot by casting such a great selection of faces. Gibson is great in the main role, doing the kind of tough and unpredictable schtick he could do in his sleep, and Henry has a knack for playing the kind of character you just know could double-cross you at any moment. Unger is sadly underused, but there are two excellent, and very different, turns from Lucy Liu and Maria Bello that more than make up for the brevity of her screentime. There are also roles for David Paymer, Bill Duke, William Devane (one of the most sorely-undercelebrated actors of his generation, in my view), James Coburn, and Kris Kristofferson, as well as one or two others you should recognise. I cannot single out any one of these actors for praise, but that’s because they all get to be equally brilliant at different times in the movie.

I really like this. It’s not as good as the original work it is based on, some better visuals and a more interesting blend of score and soundtrack could have helped (although the opening music from Chris Boardman, playing over the extended credit sequence, is superb), but I think it’s an enjoyably lean, mean, neo-noir that always seems willing to go one step further than viewers might expect. I recommend it.

8/10

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Rolling Thunder (1977)

William Devane plays Major Charles Rane, a Vietnam veteran, in this dark thriller that mixes a tale of revenge with a look at how those accustomed to wartime conditions adjust to civilian life. He has just returned home, along with a few other men, after time spent in a POW camp. His wife (Lisa Blake Richards) is as confused as she is relieved, as he was thought dead for some time, his young son (Jordan Gerler) doesn't really recognise him, and a local policeman (Lawrason Driscoll) seems to have been filling in the space that was left vacant during his time away. While he's processing the whole situation, some bad shit goes down. It leaves the Major in a bad way, but it also gives him a new mission to embark on, something that seems to put a fire back in his belly.

Directed by John Flynn, this is a movie that sits in an area right between revenge thriller and full-on exploitation film. That's no surprise, considering that the story came from Paul Schrader (who wasn't happy with changes made to the material). He and Heywood Gould co-wrote the screenplay, which is as dark and angry as you'd expect. Yet, for all the pain and darkness on display, much of the movie focuses on the readjustment that many must struggle with after various experiences in wartime. The revenge aspect of the movie may be nicely interwoven throughout the majority of the movie, but it's also almost secondary for many scenes, with viewers being given the time and opportunity to think more about what is going through the mind of Major Rane than just how satisfying revenge could be.

Devane is fantastic in the lead role. I've always been a fan of the man, and this is one of his finest lead performances. A relatively young Tommy Lee Jones also does a great job, portraying a fellow soldier equally lost when dropped back into civilian life. Richards, Gerler and Driscoll all do decent work, but it's Luke Askew and James Best who make the best impression by exemplifying the worst in human nature. They, and a few others helping them out, provide Devane with a goal to reach. Linda Haynes brightens up the screen, playing a young girl who has a crush on the Major, and who ends up helping him in his quest.

Rolling Thunder remains a very interesting movie because of the way it manages to take the darker material, and themes explored, and still package everything in a pretty slick piece of satisfying entertainment. It's not the easiest viewing experience that you will have, but it's certainly put together in a way that allows it to reach a wider audience. It's an unrelentingly grim film that doesn't feel unrelentingly grim, which is quite an achievement. Personally, I feel that a lot of that end result is thanks to the winning performance from Devane. Others may disagree, and that's absolutely fine. I will simply stalk them and glower at every opportunity.

7/10

The Region B disc is, as far as I can tell, the best option - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rolling-Thunder-Double-Play-Blu-ray/dp/B004OQJS5O/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1405101898&sr=1-1&keywords=rolling+thunder

Leprechaun's Revenge (2012)

If you haven't seen any of Drew Daywalt's short horror movies, under the FEWDIO banner, then head to YouTube now and check them out. Bedfellows remains my favourite (Creep and Mockingbird are also brilliant), but so many of them are perfect little gems that you really can just go through them all. Drew is clearly a very talented man. And when he's not making horror movies he's creating astoundingly successful children's books. Well, one so far. The Day The Crayons Quit. Which makes viewing Leprechaun's Revenge a frustrating experience. It's not all that bad for a TV movie, but fans of Mr. Daywalt know that he's capable of something much better.

The story is quite simple, and gets moving quite quickly. Karen (Courtney Halverson) is out hunting with her grandfather (William Devane) when she spies something in the woods and also gets her hand marked with a red clover. It turns out that a vicious leprechaun has sprung to life, and Karen has a limited window of time to destroy it before she is doomed. Convincing her father, the local Sheriff (Billy Zane), isn't going to be easy, but she won't be able to do it alone.

There's a bit more to it than that, with a backstory about how the main family involved are descended from people who made their fortune by, well, not being nice to a leprechaun, but that just about sums it up. It's a creature feature, with a leprechaun that's far removed from the other main leprechaun known to cinema fans, but it also has some good jump scares interspersed randomly throughout as the main character succumbs to visions of what she knows is coming after her.

The direction is solid, and the script by Anthony C. Ferrante tries to do a decent job (especially when poking fun at itself), but it's not long until cracks start to appear and the movie crumbles to a state that it can't recover from. The potential for genuine scares soon dissipates, to be replaced by more standard jumps and moments of ridiculousness. Worst of all, the last few minutes feel really rushed and anti-climactic.

Halverson is fine in the main role, and Devane and Zane are both people I always enjoy watching onscreen. Zane deserves bonus points for his straight delivery during the moment in which he relates a personal tragedy that's one of the funniest I have heard in a movie of this kind. Thankfully, the comedic aspect of the material is always intentional, I think. Dave Davis is the young man who wants to help Halverson stay safe, understandably, and Azure Parsons makes a great impression with her few scenes, playing another officer of the law caught up in the madness.

It's a bit of fun, no more and no less. Worth watching if it comes on the TV and you can't be bothered to reach for the remote control, but I hope to see something much better whenever Daywalt is allowed to make a feature film completely on his own terms.

5/10

You can buy it here, under the title "Red Clover" - http://www.amazon.com/Red-Clover/dp/B00E99FYD6/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1402686976&sr=1-1&keywords=leprechaun%27s+revenge