mini movie chat payback straight up

Mini-Movie Chat: Payback: Straight Up

Payback: Straight Up

So, there's an interview with Donald Westlake on the DVD. It isn't a

very well-produced feature, in that if you don't already know who

Donald Westlake is or what the Parker novels are you won't be able to

figure out what he's talking about. For instance, no one explains that

Parker's name has been changed to "Porter" in the movie, so when

Westlake starts talking about naming his character "Parker", if you've

only watched the movie, you might be lost.

Anyway, he goes on to talk about the two most recent Parker novels:

Nobody Runs Forever and Ask the Parrot. He said that Ask the Parrot

was a real chore for him to write, that he felt "snakebit" by it, and

that the book was "slow". I couldn't tell if he just meant it was slow

to write or if he thinks it was a slow read as well. However, as far

as this Parker fan is concerned, those two books (which really tell

one extended Parker story) are among the best in the series.

As for the movie itself:

Definitely closer to the original novel. The humor is darker and more

muted: there's none of that Shane Black-style wacky macho posturing

that made the theatrical version feel more like a typical Mel Gibson

vehicle. The interesting thing is that though I liked the theatrical

version for the most part, I felt that Gibson was miscast as Parker.

But in the director's cut, with the goofiness trimmed away, Gibson

seems to fit the character just about perfectly. We tend to think of a

movie performance as something an actor does and while I don't want to

take anything away from the work Gibson did, the two versions of

Payback really emphasize how much a given performance in a film can be

shaped by the director an editor.