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Max Payne
A DEA agent whose family was slain as part of a conspiracy, and an assassin out to avenge her sister's death, join forces to solve a series of murders in New York City.
2008 · Directed by John Moore · 100 min · Crime · Action · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 3 frames
Tagline
When a man has lost everything, he only has revenge.
Plot
Max Payne is a detective assigned to the NYPD Cold Case Unit. He lost his wife Michelle and infant daughter Rose in a horrific murder; since that day, Max has been consumed by the desire to find his family's killer. He comes under suspicion from the NYPD when Natasha, an acquaintance of one of Max's informants, is brutally murdered and Max's wallet (which she had stolen) is found at the crime scene. Max's former partner, Alex Balder, is slain in his home after informing Max of a possible connection between Natasha's death and his family's murder. Max is framed as a murderer, and Lt. Bravura of Internal Affairs is tasked with bringing him in.
Max and Mona Sax, a freelance assassin and Natasha's sister, visit Natasha's tattoo parlor, where the tattoo artist reveals the meaning behind a tattoo that Natasha had: it represents the wings of a Valkyrie, which, in Norse mythology, are creatures that decide the fate of warriors in battle. Max goes to secretly take some of Michelle's belongings out of storage and finds that documents from when she worked at the Aesir Corporation, a major pharmaceutical manufacturer, have gone missing. Max interrogates Michelle's former supervisor, Jason Colvin, in his office at Aesir and learns that Michelle was involved with the development of Valkyr, a drug that the company produced under military contract in an attempt to create super-soldiers. Unfortunately, only a few subjects showed positive results; the rest saw hallucinations and eventually went insane, forcing Aesir to terminate the project and cover up their involvement. Jason agrees to testify against his employers, as long as Max can protect him. Max agrees, but then SWAT officers (Aesir contractors in disguise) raid the office, killing Jason and attracting Bravura's attention.
After an intense gunfight, Max escapes with the evidence and shows Mona a video explaining the Valkyr project and featuring Jack Lupino, a former Marine who was one of Aesir's successful test subjects. Lupino explains in the video that while taking the drug, he feels invincible, and suffers none of the side effects. Max confronts Lupino, now a powerful gangster involved with the trafficking of Valkyr as a designer drug, at his warehouse hideout, and the two men fight until Lupino gains the upper hand. Max's defeat appears certain until B.B. - Aesir's head of security and a father figure to Max - arrives and shoots Lupino dead. He then has Max knocked out and brought to the city docks.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Beau Thorne
- Cinematography: Jonathan Sela
- Edited by: Dan Zimmerman
- Music: Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders
- Production design: Daniel T. Dorrance
- Produced by: Scott Faye, John Moore, Peter Veverka, Julie Yorn
Cast
- Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne
- Mila Kunis as Mona Sax
- Beau Bridges as BB Hensley
- Ludacris as Jim Bravura
- Chris O'Donnell as Jason Colvin
- Donal Logue as Alex Balder
- Amaury Nolasco as Jack Lupino
- Kate Burton as Nicole Horne
- Olga Kurylenko as Natasha
- Rothaford Gray as Joe Salle
Production
- Country: United States of America, Canada
- Language: English, Russian, Spanish
- Studios: Dune Entertainment, Abandon Entertainment, Collision Entertainment, Depth Entertainment
- Budget: $35,000,000
- Box office: $85,416,905
- Themes: new york city, assassin, based on video game, aftercreditsstinger
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