This review has many spoilers.
Gone are the blue visuals many associate with the theatrical cut. Instead director Brian Helgeland has replaced them with more standard, though maybe slightly oversaturated, visuals. Porter's (Gibson's) voice overs have also disappeared, and this all equates to a less noiry feel.
But the biggest changes come in the story. In the original version, we're introduced to Porter as he lays, shot up from his recent betrayal, on the table of a not-really doctor in some grubby basement who takes a drink of his whiskey before sterilizing his "instruments" in it. Porter vows he'll get the money he lost.
This slam-bang start is omitted, and the director's cut seems to steam ahead at full speed, polishing off the first 25 minutes of the movie in a time closer to 15.
From what I could recall, most of the middle portion is then relatively identical story-wise. The main changes begin once Porter kills Resnick. In the original cut, he and Rosie then head to a safehouse. There, the phone begins to ring and a suspicious Porter finds a bomb attached to it. Like a true badass, he subtly makes his way outside, cuts the fuel line of the guys in the car watching from the street, and waits behind the car for them to notice him. Then he throws his cigarette into the leaking fuel with predictable, and badass, results.
No such safehouse exists in Straight Up. Porter and Rosie just pack up and leave her apartment, and that's the end of that, with the exception of a brief trip back to frame the cops trying to take his money. Following Resnick's demise, Porter goes to Carter and Fairfax to convince the Outfit to give him his due. This is the same except that Kristofferson is replaced by a woman on the phone named Bronson. We never see her.
At Fairfax's home, Porter convinces Bronson to give him his money at a subway station. This is where the plot diverges the most; a whole alternate ending begins.
Porter goes to the station, and fully expecting some sort of ambush, begins taking out all the henchmen hanging around before they know what hit 'em. He eventually gets to the man with the bag of money, but just before he takes it and makes his getaway, a woman he hadn't suspected pulls a gun and shoots him. Shot once, he manages to fire back and take her down. Bleeding, he stumbles off the platform to the street below, the backpack with $130,00 in one hand and a gun in the other. Rosie gets to him and they drive away. She says he needs a hospital. He refuses - he "knows a guy." The movie ends, and Porter's survival is left in question.
It's not a bad ending, but it just kind of happens and is over. The Kristofferson subplot in the original was more effective, I thought. It was more drawn out, more satisfying. And we could put a face to the bad guy, a bad guy who brutally tortures Porter using a sledgehammer until he gets what he wants. Porter was then, with a little luck, able to outwit the Outfit one last time using their own ambush against them.
Was this the cut Helgeland really wanted? I understand he was limited in the footage he had to work with - a lot had been lost. So was this really his true cut, or just kind of sort of how he wanted the movie to turn out? Either way, I prefer the original. It was darkly funny, and Straight Up lost that sense of humor. I don't mind the blues being gone, but the voice-over did a lot to add atmosphere to the film. But most disappointing was the elimination of some of Porter's best, most badass moments. I wouldn't have minded the alternate ending if there was more to it, but as is it didn't seem to do the story justice like the theatrical cut's ending.
Payback: Straight Up isn't a bad movie by any means. If I had seen it first, I'm sure I would've loved it. It's just that the original is a classic in my book, and the director's cut doesn't quite do it justice.
Payback: 9/10 Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut: 7/10
Gone are the blue visuals many associate with the theatrical cut. Instead director Brian Helgeland has replaced them with more standard, though maybe slightly oversaturated, visuals. Porter's (Gibson's) voice overs have also disappeared, and this all equates to a less noiry feel.
But the biggest changes come in the story. In the original version, we're introduced to Porter as he lays, shot up from his recent betrayal, on the table of a not-really doctor in some grubby basement who takes a drink of his whiskey before sterilizing his "instruments" in it. Porter vows he'll get the money he lost.
This slam-bang start is omitted, and the director's cut seems to steam ahead at full speed, polishing off the first 25 minutes of the movie in a time closer to 15.
From what I could recall, most of the middle portion is then relatively identical story-wise. The main changes begin once Porter kills Resnick. In the original cut, he and Rosie then head to a safehouse. There, the phone begins to ring and a suspicious Porter finds a bomb attached to it. Like a true badass, he subtly makes his way outside, cuts the fuel line of the guys in the car watching from the street, and waits behind the car for them to notice him. Then he throws his cigarette into the leaking fuel with predictable, and badass, results.
No such safehouse exists in Straight Up. Porter and Rosie just pack up and leave her apartment, and that's the end of that, with the exception of a brief trip back to frame the cops trying to take his money. Following Resnick's demise, Porter goes to Carter and Fairfax to convince the Outfit to give him his due. This is the same except that Kristofferson is replaced by a woman on the phone named Bronson. We never see her.
At Fairfax's home, Porter convinces Bronson to give him his money at a subway station. This is where the plot diverges the most; a whole alternate ending begins.
Porter goes to the station, and fully expecting some sort of ambush, begins taking out all the henchmen hanging around before they know what hit 'em. He eventually gets to the man with the bag of money, but just before he takes it and makes his getaway, a woman he hadn't suspected pulls a gun and shoots him. Shot once, he manages to fire back and take her down. Bleeding, he stumbles off the platform to the street below, the backpack with $130,00 in one hand and a gun in the other. Rosie gets to him and they drive away. She says he needs a hospital. He refuses - he "knows a guy." The movie ends, and Porter's survival is left in question.
It's not a bad ending, but it just kind of happens and is over. The Kristofferson subplot in the original was more effective, I thought. It was more drawn out, more satisfying. And we could put a face to the bad guy, a bad guy who brutally tortures Porter using a sledgehammer until he gets what he wants. Porter was then, with a little luck, able to outwit the Outfit one last time using their own ambush against them.
Was this the cut Helgeland really wanted? I understand he was limited in the footage he had to work with - a lot had been lost. So was this really his true cut, or just kind of sort of how he wanted the movie to turn out? Either way, I prefer the original. It was darkly funny, and Straight Up lost that sense of humor. I don't mind the blues being gone, but the voice-over did a lot to add atmosphere to the film. But most disappointing was the elimination of some of Porter's best, most badass moments. I wouldn't have minded the alternate ending if there was more to it, but as is it didn't seem to do the story justice like the theatrical cut's ending.
Payback: Straight Up isn't a bad movie by any means. If I had seen it first, I'm sure I would've loved it. It's just that the original is a classic in my book, and the director's cut doesn't quite do it justice.
Payback: 9/10 Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut: 7/10