As South Park famously put it; say what you want about Mel Gibson, but the son of a bitch knows story structure. Long before being lampooned by the animated classic, the two-time Academy Award winner put that to the test by getting too hands on for some in 1999’s hard-boiled thriller Payback.
The theatrical version was a decent-sized hit that hauled in $162 million at the box office, but the behind the scenes issues ended up stealing away plenty of the spotlight. Not only did Gibson come clean and admit he played a pivotal role in having director Brian Helgeland removed from the production, but he was instrumental in the changes that were made thereafter.
Kris Kristofferson was added to the noir-tinged revenge story as its primary antagonist, extensive reshoots overhauled a third of the entire film, and the screenplay was heavily rewritten to follow the new creative direction. It wasn’t an ideal scenario for Helgeland, but he ended up getting his revenge in a roundabout sort of way.
Eight years after being forcibly exiled from his own feature, Payback: Straight Up hit home video, and there’s plenty of people out there willing to die on the hill that it’s the better version. Your mileage may vary on that front, but what can’t be argued is that the initial edition has been tracking down the people who wronged Gibson’s Porter on streaming and making them pay.
Per FlixPatrol, Payback V1.0 is currently one of the top-ranked titles on iTunes, and if it piques your interest then tracking down Straight Up comes highly recommended.