Payback: Straight Up (2006)

  I've seen the original release of this movie probably a dozen times and I love it.  I didn't even know there was a director's cut, much less one made 7 years after the first run.  I didn't expect there would be a lot of differences but I was wrong.

Plot is still the same:  Porter (Mel Gibson) is a thief fucked over by his partner Val (Gregg Henry) after ripping off the Chinese mafia for $140,000.  Val needs $130,000 to buy his way in to the criminal organization known as The Syndicate and Porter now stands in his way.  So Val and Porter's wife (Debra Kara Unger) shoot Porter full of holes and leave him to die.  But he doesn't die.  He gets a back alley doctor to fix him up and waits for his chance at revenge.

Here's where it gets different.  In the theatrical cut the opening scene is a voiceover from Porter narrating his intentions in a neat little pulp-noir type vibe.  Straight up:  no narration, just dialogue from the event like voices running through his head.  The director's cut removes nearly all of the humor, shows a lot more violence (including a scene where Porter beats the shit out of his wife), and cuts out Kris Kristofferson's role as the big boss completely.  I don't know if that was to remove the (admittedly weak) plot line of when Porter kidnaps his son to lure him out or if Kristofferson just refused to sign a release saying they could reuse his footage or what.  At any rate, the big boss is now just a voice on the phone and never gets seen.

I don't know that I necessarily agreed with a lot of the choices made in recutting this film.  It is very different in tone and message.  I can only assume that this is what Brian Helgeland intended when he wrote the screenplay but then got softened by the studios.  I guess it just depends on what flavor you like your Mel Gibson revenge fests.  Personally, I prefer mine played more lighthearted.