Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is a troubled man whose face is continually carved into an angry sneer. And why wouldn't he be? His wife and newborn son were brutally murdered in his home by junkies and he was only minutes late in saving them. He's been demoted from stellar detective to a mere file clerk in the cold case files because of his troubles following the murders. Even his old partner, Det. Alex Balder (Donal Logue), has been keeping his distance since Max blames him for letting the case go cold. Max spends all his free time beating the bushes looking for leads in his wife's murder and while at one of his contact's parties, he meets Natasha Sax (Olga Kurylenko), a vixen who winds up brutally murdered later that night. Naturally, Max is implicated in the crime because she had his wallet, but Alex soon finds a connection between this crime and the murder of Michelle, Max's wife, namely a Norse wing tattoo.
Before he can share this with Max, he falls victim to the same fate and Max has to join forces with Mona Sax (Mila Kunis), who wants to find her sister's real killer. Old family friend B.B. (Beau Bridges) is trying to help Max during this trying time, especially since he works at Aesir Corp. as head of security, where Max's wife worked before her untimely demise. But things are not as they appear. It seems Aesir Corp. just might be manufacturing the drug driving everyone mad. Max tries to bully information out of Michelle's superior, Jason Colvin (Chris O'Donnell), and he knows more than he is telling, but people just keep getting dead around old Max. Add to that an Internal Affairs cop hot on his heels by the name of Lt. Jim Bravura (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) and poor Max is up to his eyeballs in trouble. Will he ever find his wife's true killer, before he meets his maker himself?
The entire movie has a black/white film noir feel to it, which is just what the game conveyed. Swirling snow is everywhere and the environments all feel utterly cold and hopeless, just like Max. Since the videogame invented "bullet time" which was used heavily in The Matrix, there is an obligatory scene where time slows down, but it's done well. The difference between the theaterical version and the unrated version is a little more blood and a little more sex, mainly two girls making out. We are only talking about 3 minutes difference, after all.
As for special features, there is a commentary with the Director, Production Designer and Visual Effects Supervisor, plus two fairly long making-of featurettes that make Director John Moore seem like a real ass. There are also a number of few-minute-long segments that seem to rehash the making-of but are specifically named, so if you want to see a particular topic, these are the ticket. My hands-down favorite special feature was the animated graphic novel on Michelle Payne, which gave some nice background to the story. It's well worth watching.
Mark Wahlberg does a convicing job as Max Payne and although Mila Kunis never really struck me as much of a bad ass, she does well also. My favorite had to be Chris Bridges/Ludacris, though. He really owned his role and I hope to see more of him in films soon. As for B.B. (could that stand for Beau Bridges?), he worked well as the guy you thought you loved, but learned differently.
As for nods to the fans, the character names were the same as in the game, although the roles were somewhat different. I really enjoyed seeing signs like the one for the club "Ragnarok" which were just like the game, plus a few other familiar names popped up on signage in the movie like Gognitti's Storage, who was a big character in one of the games.
Overall, Max Payne is a dark film, but I enjoyed it. It's not my favorite, but for a movie translation from a game, it's definitely not bad. It looks gorgeous and crisp on Blu-ray and the surround sound really makes the film. If you have your choice between standard def and high-def, you should go with the Blu-ray version.
