Max Payne, as a character, seems awfully clich�. A man with nothing to lose, who doesnt play by the rules. Hell do what he pleases to exact his own brand of vigilante justice. Of course he does, because how many times has such an angle been played out, in how many TV shows, video games, or movies? Max Payne is that, but more. He is, in a way, the personification of failure and disappointment. He comes home to his perfect life; a perfect house in New York City, a beautiful wife and baby girl. A successful member of the NYPD, who, together with his friend, the FBI agent Alex Balder, Max has solved many despicable crimes, and put away many criminals. All of it comes crashing down when he finds three ex-military killers that have killed his family, hopped up on a previously unknown designer drug known as Valkyr, or V.
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Max, in his grief, transfers to the DEA in the hopes of finding the source of the drug, all the while killing anyone and everyone in his path. His mad quest for vengeance leads him to lose face with his former comrades in the NYPD, as he is set up by his contact B.B. Hensley, and framed for the murder of Alex Balder. As he chases shadows in the dark streets of the Bronx, and is chased by the NYPD led by Deputy Chief Jim Bravura, Max meets two deadly individuals. First, Max curiously gains the favor of the mysterious Russian mobster Vladimir Lem, who convinces Max that his revenge would be best served in tracking down and murdering over a dozen syndicate bosses and underbosses of the Punchinello crime family, all the way to the top; to Don Angelo Punchinello himself. Next, Max meets, and later falls for, the sexy and deadly professional assassin Mona Sax.
After taking down the mob gets Max little to no closer to satisfaction, he hunts down B.B. Hensley, slowly piecing together the web of lies and manipulation that have turned Maxs life into a living hell. He is then contacted by Senator Alfred Woden, who promises Max all the answers. Woden explains that the Punchinello family, its mob war with Vladimir Lem, the murder of Maxs family, and the spread of Valkyr throughout the streets, all has to do with a group called the Inner Circle, of which Woden is a member. Woden promises Max that he and the Inner Circle will wipe Maxs record clean, make all the charges go away; that is, if Max promises to kill the Inner Circles nemesis, the powerful head of New York Citys own Aesir Corporation, Nicole Horne. In the process, Mona Sax is shot, her body disappearing and leaving only a pool of blood in the elevator that Max last saw her in.
Even after killing Nicole Horne as promised, Maxs nightmare refuses to die. Woden makes the charges go away, as promised, and Max returns to the NYPD, taking on a new case. Max begins hunting down a cadre of killers dressed in cleaning uniforms, who begin their war against the last surviving underboss of the Punchinello crime family, the infamous Vinnie Gognitti. While trying to investigate his case, Max is continually hounded by both his Deputy Chief and a senior officer, the mysterious and shady by-the-books Inspector Winterson. Max learns that Winterson is investigating a case at the highest level, the murder of another Senator and member of the Inner Circle. The principal suspect in this case is Mona Sax, who somehow survived the ordeal in the Aesir Corporation building.
With Monas help, Max learns that the Cleaners were behind the Senators death, and the two are hunted until they meet up with Winterson, who plans to murder Mona, reminding Max that Mona is a wanted criminal after all, and Max faces the choice between his duty and his love. Both women draw their weapons, and Max finds himself pulling his Beretta on Winterson and shooting her in the chest. Winterson shoots Max a few times in the back, and he tumbles from a rooftop. After his recovery, Mona directs Max to find Vinnie Gognitti, the only one who can help them find out where the Cleaners came from. Max eventually discovers that the Cleaners have been under the employment of Vladimir Lem, so he decides to take revenge out on Lem, another who had been manipulating Max all along.
Lem takes the fight directly to Max, blowing up Gognitti and, later on, shooting Max in the face. Max barely survives both ordeals, and both Mona and Alfred Woden are killed by Vladimir. Max kills Vladimir in the end, and a happy ending is not had by all. Through all of Maxs trials, he borders on being a hopelessly pathetic character; brutal, remorseless, yes, and as a result, heavily flawed. All of the killing he committed, from his familys killers, Angelo Punchinello, Horne, Winterson, finally to Lem and every mobster, druggie, and Cleaner in between; every bullet he fired has brought him an inch closer to the simple acceptance of the loss of his family. He lost family, friends, a lover, and many others along the way, only to finally stop beating himself up and move on. Through it all, Maxs ending is hopelessly anti-climactic.
In truth, Max is most compelling when he is most vulnerable. At several points; killing Jack Lupino and being drugged by Mona, being drugged by Horne after taking care of Don Angelo, being shot by Winterson, getting blown up with Vinnie Gognitti, and finally being shot by Lem; all of these are either black-out or Valkyr-induced excursions into Maxs subconscious. Fascinating hallucinations filled with cryptic messages, artistic flair, and destructive epiphanies, Max grapples with an identity crisis, survivors guilt, and the sort of doubting self-hatred that would put an un-medicated schizophrenic to shame. Thankfully, Max Payne is more than a clich�, and while one who never finds catharsis, his path of bullet cases and corpses doesnt leave much to be desired for your standard action movie.
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