Max Payne is the latest movie to come from video games. Starring Mark Wahlberg, it is the ultimate story of revenge. The character of Max Payne loses everything that is dear to him and enters into a vengeful underworld.
“(I) had to put myself in that headspace of imagining that something horrific happened to my family,” said Wahlberg, who plays Payne, describing the psychological preparation he went through to get into the hurt soul of Payne. He explained that this “is not a fun place to go, you know. I had to stay in that space for the course of the 12 weeks of production.” But he assured, in the phone conference interview, “I certainly knew I could go to that place and have no problems becoming a crazed individual because of it.”
This crime thriller, noir-style film is no foreign subject for Wahlberg, he told one reporter, “I’m really drawn to the kind of movies which I see, which are, you know … I love anti-heroes and crime saga.” Wahlberg did on the other hand, say that he also likes to do the exact opposite genre type that he did before. For instance, playing an inquisitive scientist in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening right after playing a cop in James Gray’s We Own the Night.
This movie comes off the heels of a rather, to put it nicely, disappointing video game, and Wahlberg said that, “First and foremost we wanted to satisfy the diehard game fans, and hopefully it will draw a lot of other people to the film based on the images that they see in the spots, and you know, maybe they’ll go and watch and play the game after.”
“There was a bit of a red flag raised just because the video games I grew up playing had no story whatsoever,” explained Wahlberg about his familiarity with other video games made in to film. “I played PacMan and Asteroids,” in a moment of reflection that seemed to show him dating himself. “I was surprised at how elaborate the story was and how cinematic the game itself was,” Wahlberg said after his experience of playing the game itself.
“When I’m acting, I don’t want anyone to think that I am Ludacris, and that is the exact reason why I do that,” said co-star, Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, who plays an Internal Affairs agent. Bridges commented on the irony of his rapper persona, who is rather an anti-authoritarian, and explained, “I auditioned for the role, and I got the part, and it was definitely written for a 60-year old white man at first.”
“It was different. It was challenging. There’s actually no reason why I shouldn’t have done it. It’s not like I made a conscious decision ‘oh, the next film I do is going to be an action movie starring Ludacris and Mark Wahlberg’,” said actress Mila Kunis explaining her jump from comedic roles, like in Family Guy and That 70’s Show to this dramatic film. Kunis plays a Russian mobster. She also explained her initial concerns about her ability to handle a gun.
“(John Moore) kind of puts a lot of those elements in the movie. And there’s one part of the movie which I really like, I really enjoy, is that kind of circular motion where the camera is right in front of Mark Wahlberg’s face and he’s kind of on an axis, the same way you can play the video game sometimes,” said Bridges about how Moore, the director, tried to take elements from the game and apply them to the film.
The movie is in theaters now. Don’t take their word for it, go see the film.