To be successful, an action film needs only to have two things: a plot that's somewhat interesting and lots of macho characters, memorable one-liners, explosions and weapon fights. "Max Payne" has none of the former and unfortunately lacks the latter.
The plot is a melding together of other action movies, which doesn't make it unique. With the bravado of a cowboy and the angsty rage of Harry Potter, detective Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is out for vengeance. Payne spends his days brooding over the deaths of his wife and child he witnessed three years earlier and searching for their killers. He crosses paths with a strange blue drug that people have recently started taking to have demonic hallucinations. When the drug starts leading to a trail of bodies connected to Payne, he goes gallivanting down the rabbit hole like an overenthusiastic knight.
Wahlberg makes the character bearable, and without him the movie would be a depressing mess. He makes a lot out of a shallow, humorless, shoot 'em up tool, but even Wahlberg can't make miracles. As far as the acting goes in this movie, he looks like a deity.
Whoever thought to cast Mila Kunis (Meg from "Family Guy" and Jackie from "That 70's Show") as a Russian mafiosa or Beau Bridges (known for being in about every '80s, '90s and present television show at some point) as an old ex-cop friend clearly had no idea what they were doing. Both actors are more suited to working on TV.
The movie has suitable action scenes, but it uses a lot of strobe lighting and slow motion effects to make it feel like an epileptic nightmare. The highlights of the movie are when Wahlberg goes insane and starts heartlessly mauling his enemies. The problem with the action is that there isn't enough, and the movie relies too much on the plot to keep it afloat.
"Max Payne" is a mess for the most part, and it relies on a lot of cheesy lines and camera shots to hammer a confusing message into your skull. It feels like a poorly constructed piece made solely for profit. It's tempting to use the obvious pun in the title to say how "payneful" the movie was, but instead I'd like to quote a line from the movie (specifically a character's response to questions about Max Payne): "Stay away from Max Payne."
