Sponsored by
FILM: Max Payne, Chichester Cineworld (15) (100 mins)
A film inspired by a game was never going to offer the more subtle pleasures of cinema-going. But it's doubtful whether this dire movie offers any pleasures at all.
Max Payne is a maverick cop hell-bent on revenge after junkies slaughtered his wife and child.
Underpinning it all is a half-decent story about performance-enhancing drugs for soldiers going horribly wrong with dire consequences for everyone.
But the story emerges in such a drab, downbeat and uninteresting way that it's difficult to see beyond the relentless violence.
The film is a succession of people being slammed against walls and blasted by shotguns.
Max gets a little mate at one stage, a woman whose sister went to pieces in an alleyway. Well, was ripped to pieces actually.
But the film has no interest in any relationship that might develop between them. Instead, we move from one drab, dark, forbidding setting to the next as yet more bodies tumble.
Even dark underworlds need a few shafts of light. Without them, they're a total yawn.
Max Payne is the kind of film that really makes you worry about the people who made it - and worry even more about the people that manage to watch it through to the end.
I didn't. Cinema either entertains or stretches, and the best cinema does both. This does neither.
Phil Hewitt
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Chichester
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 6 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 4 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: North west
