PAYBACK:Director's Cut - Page 2

I love Coburn firing his bodyguards while they're still holding up his bags.

James Coburn's performance in this and the Maverick remake are both great I think.

I got the movie on Blu-ray from Blockbuster and is sitting at home. I just haven't found a chance to watch it. I'm really looking forward to it.

The doc on this disc is pretty interesting how it all came together.

I really dig both versions. Plus the train station finale and the scene where Unger gets the smackdown by Gibson are badass sequences. Would have loved to have the opening scene with Gibson getting the bullets taken out of his back. Makes me think that this would have been a cooler set if both cuts were included not unlike the Criterion Brazil.

The director's cut and the theatrical seemed like totally different movies to me, even though the bulk of the changes don't occur until the last act. STRAIGHT UP just seemed so much bleaker and devoid of all of the camp in the theatrical cut, like the tongue-in-cheek noir voiceover stuff. The added scene of Porter smacking Lynn around was surprisingly brutal--Unger said she even cracked some ribs filming that scene. My one real gripe with STRAIGHT UP is that some segments of the new score betray the budgetary constraints Helgeland was working with. I like the new main theme composed for the opening montage (which is probably one of my favorite opening credits sequences; just a cool intro to the character), but a lot of the other stuff sounds like DTV bass-laden synthesizer junk. And the loss of "Voodoo Child" and "It's a Man's World" left a noticeable void in those particular scenes.

My thoughts exactly. The special features are actually pretty comprehensive. And Mel Gibson may have looked crazy, but he surprised me in not being totally loony in the interviews. He had some interesting insights into his projection of Porter's back story.

I'm sure it was rough on Helgeland when the studio took things over, but the doc makes it seem like the most civil instance of a director being booted from a film ever.

How great is the new scene where Porter shoots the guy who brags about fucking Rosie?

That is a great scene. Pretty much sums up their relationship without having to have the additional interplay from the theatrical cut.

The scene where Porter takes on Carter is greatly improved tonally even though not much is changed. It just seems more dangerous in STRAIGHT UP.

That and the kitchen scene with Unger at the beginning were my favorite parts of the new cut. I also liked Gibson showing Unger the photo, "That was before we met, baby." I don't think we got that info in the theatrical release but I haven't watched it in a while.

I missed Gibson's VO, although I can understand the point that it makes the flick campier. I REALLY missed the scene with the doctor pulling out the bullets at the opening of the theatrical cut. That was my favorite scene in the movie.

And how did Porter not see that chick checking him out in the compact mirror at the train station? Godddamn it, pay attention!

They made that woman a bit too obvious to the audience. It should have been more of a surprise when she started firing.

That urinal shootout was tops as well.

Yeah, when the woman used the compact about 8 times and Porter was just ignoring her, you knew he was blowing it.

I really miss the bullet extraction scene at the beginning and the voice over as well. I'm glad they kept the scenes with James Coburn though. I'm also confused about how he knew to find Michael since they took out the scene where he was paying the hooker for information (played by Elizabeth Berridge I think?).

In the theatrical cut, Porter steals money from a homeless guy saying he's a crippled veteran. Then the guy stands up and Porter chokes the shit out of him while saying, "I cured ya." In STRAIGHT UP, they took out the dialogue and Porter just chokes the shit out of him. I didn't like that they cut it out because it's a cool line, but it does make him seem a lot more ruthless stealing from just a homeless guy as opposed to a homeless guy who is lying about his paralysis.