Max Payne
HEADLINE: ** Payneful World **
TITLE: max payne
Quality: * * Acceptability: -3
SUBTITLES: -- Brief Russian with English subtitles --
WARNING CODES:
Language: LLL
Violence: VVV
Sex: S
Nudity: NN
RATING: PG-13
RELEASE: October 17, 2008
TIME: 99 minutes
STARRING: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Chris O'Donnell, Donal Logue, Amaury Nolasco, Kate Burton, and Olga Kurylenko
DIRECTOR: John Moore
PRODUCERS: Julie Yorn, Scott Faye and John Moore
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Rick Yorn, Karen Lauder and Tom Karnowski
WRITER: Beau Thorne
BASED ON THE Max Payne Video Game BY: Rockstar Games
DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox
CONTENT: (PaPa, FR, Acap, Ab, B, LLL, VVV, S, NN, A, DD, MM) Strong slightly mixed pagan worldview with some false theological concepts from Norse mythology, including images of demons that appear during drug-induced hallucinations, plus corporate corruption, hero says that he believes in pain and death rather than Heaven in the beginning but at the end says, "I don't know about Heaven but I do believe in angels," and one man cryptically says that the Devil is gathering his army and that hero is trying to find something that God wants to stay hidden, but movie never resolves these supernatural allusions and ends with the policeman hero taking revenge; at least 21 obscenities (including one "f" word), nine strong profanities and two light profanities; very strong action violence (although not extremely graphic and very little blood shown) including disturbing dialogue, murder, a person hacked to pieces, fist fights, beating a person with a stick, man commits suicide by jumping from building, gun battles, shootings, and innocent man killed by police; a woman tries to seduce protagonist; brief partial female nudity, woman in provocative clothing then shown from behind only in underwear with slight glimpse of her breasts; light alcohol use shown in club scene; moderate drug use concerning an engineered serum that a user soon becomes addicted to; and, hero takes revenge at the end, hatred, betrayal, deceit, and scary images.
GENRE: Detective Thriller
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Teenagers and adults
Please address your comments to:
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman/CEO of News Corp.
Peter Chernin, President/COO of The Fox Group
Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos, Chairmen/CEO
Fox Filmed Entertainment
20th Century Fox Film Corp.
(Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic)
10201 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Phone: (310) 369-1000
Website: www.fox.com
SUMMARY: MAX PAYNE is the story of a maverick cop determined to track down those responsible for the murder of his wife and child, whose search for justice takes him into a dark underworld of drugs and violence. The production quality of Max Payne is superb and has a great look visually and stylistically, but the script leaves something to be desired and the movie's confusing pagan worldview contains false teaching, revenge, foul language, and violence.
IN BRIEF:
MAX PAYNE stars Mark Wahlberg as a maverick police detective determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murders of his wife and child. When a girl and his former partner are found murdered, Max becomes a suspect. Driven by revenge and the search for justice, his obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmare journey into a dark underworld with drug-induced visions of demons. As the mystery deepens, Max is forced to battle enemies that seem to be beyond the natural world as he faces an unthinkable betrayal.
The production quality of Max Payne is superb and has a great look visually and stylistically. The set, which reportedly took 8 months to build, brings the dark world of Max Payne to life. The acting is good, but the script leaves something to be desired. It contains loose ends and a dark, uninspiring hero. Besides the foul language and the revenge motif, the biggest problem with MAX PAYNE is its confused and vague pagan worldview. Not much is explained, including some cryptic statements about the Devil and God, and unresolved visions of darkness and light. Ultimately, MAX PAYNE offers little.
NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr, publisher of Movieguide Magazine. For more information from a Christian perspective, order the latest Movieguide Magazine by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our website at www.movieguide.org. Movieguide is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out. Movieguide now offers an online subscription to its magazine version, atwww.movieguide.org. The magazine, which comes out 25 times a year, contains many informative articles and reviews that help parents train their children to be media-wise consumers.
