Mark Wahlberg portrays a man who’s lost everything as the title character in Max Payne. His beautiful wife, Michelle, his baby, and a career. All he has left, all he lives for, is to catch those that are responsible. He doesn’t care what he has to do to catch them either. My kind of guy!
Mila Kunis, although her role is relatively short on screen time, is amazing as the gun-toting, tough-talking, deliciously sexy assassin, Mona Sax. When Mona’s sister is killed by the same thugs who killed Michelle, Max and Mona team up to seemingly take on the world.
Big time corporation suits, the cops, and the underworld bad boys are all out to get them. There’s constant action and that’s a plus. What I didn’t care for was shoddy attention to details concerning some of the fight scenes. For instance, a shotgun, when combat loaded holds five shells. There was one scene where I stopped counting how many shots he fired before he reloaded. When those things are so noticeable, it detracts from the suspension of disbelief.
Though, I must say, the actual quantity of violence was just right. It was enough to be plausible in the situation, enough so that we as the audience still identified with Max, he’s still the “good guy”, but there was enough motivation of emotion to counter it evenly. I suppose the term I’m looking for is “well-rounded”.