What I'm Watching: "Payback"

Icon Entertainment

Why I watched it: Although Mel Gibson is not the most popular person these days, it's hard to deny that he's not an entertaining actor and a pretty talented one at that. Of course, he's done his fair share of clunkers, but you can't forget Braveheart and Lethal Weapon. So Gibson is basically the only reason I watched this because he's still a favorite actor of mine, even though he's sort of totally CRAZY these days.

What I thought: When you have a movie with taglines like "No more Mr. Nice Guy" and "Get ready to root for the Bad Guy", you better live up to those statements, especially with a title like Payback. I expected relentless violence and Gibson to be a total badass who has lots of crazy shootouts and stuff. Sadly, there really isn't much action and Gibson's character comes across more as a jerk (especially in the beginning) than a angry man out for revenge. It has a definite '90's flare to it that makes it more cheesy than I would've liked. If that cheesiness had come from more action/violence, I would've been OK with that. Instead, the tone is just dull and silly and the plot goes places without any reason.

Should YOU watch it: You could live without it. If you're a die-hard Gibson fan (are there any left today?), you've probably already seen this, but if not, sure. But for the action-movie buffs, it definitely doesn't perform very well in that department (even though the picture above says otherwise).