Based on a popular video game character, this ultra-violent film starring Mark Wahlberg as vigilante cop Max Payne tries to be two things at once. On the one hand, it’s a crime drama about a guy whose wife and child were killed during a robbery attempt. On the other, it’s a sci-fi thriller about an experimental drug that will turn ordinary men into monsters with Hulk-like strength. Either way you take it, the convoluted plot takes so many twists and turns, it never really makes much sense, even as Max starts to get to the bottom of his wife’s unsolved murder. H
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2008.
