Max Payne

In New York City, detective Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is working in the Cold Case unit after transferring there three years before. He is consumed with investigating and finding the murderer of his wife, Michelle (Marianthi Evans), and daughter. In his search, Max is getting information from his snitch, Trevor (Andrew Friedman), which leads him to Doug who is with two other drug addicts in an empty train station. They follow Max to the bathroom where Max starts a fight with them trying to get information out of Doug about his wife's murder. After getting nothing out of the druggie he goes to Trevor's apartment, where he is having a party, looking for another name. Here, Max is introduced to Natasha Sax (Olga Kurylenko), who takes an interest in him, and her sister Mona Sax (Mila Kunis). The sisters get into an argument, Max turns around and Natasha is gone. He goes looking for Natasha near a back room where people are taking Valkyr. There Max is silently confronted by Jack Lupino (Amaury Nolasco) but Natasha comes over and takes him away. Max wants information from Natasha and is interested in her tattoos so he invites her back to his apartment. However, after Natasha makes insensitive comments about his wife, Max kicks her out.

The next morning Natasha turns up dead with Max's wallet at the crime scene and Max becomes the prime suspect with his old partner Alex Balder (Donal Logue) on the case. Alone in his office, Alex notices the tattoo on Natasha's arm is similar to the one found on the murderer's arm from the case file of Max's wife. Alex tries to contact Max but with no luck and quickly leaves to find Max at his apartment. Max gets the message and arrives at this apartment, the door is slightly open and it's dark inside. He finds his place a mess and Alex dead before he is attacked and blacks out.

Max wakes up in a hospital beside his father's partner and close friend of the family, B.B. Hensley (Beau Bridges). Max decides to pay his respects to Alex but upon arrival is kicked out by his angry wife, Christa (Nelly Furtado) who explains that Alex was still very upset about Michelle's case. While being questioned by internal affairs officer Jim Bravura (Ludacris) Max storms out and searches Alex's desk finding Owen Green's name in Natasha's case file. Later, Max is confronted by Mona who assumes Max killed her sister but is persuaded to team up with Max and find the true killer. Max and Mona go to visit Owen Green for answers but can't save him from a winged shadow that pulls him out of the building to his death. Following an original lead the two visit Natasha's tattoo parlor to dig up clues about the ink. The tattoo artist tells them it's the wings of a Valkyrie which is related to Norse mythology, it is for protection in battle. Desperate for clues, Max takes some of Michelle's belongings out of storage and looks through them and comes across some documents from the Aesir Corporation; the company she worked for. Taking some of the Aeiser documents Max goes to a diner to meet B.B.. Max wants the name of Michelle's old supervisor and B.B. tells him it is Jason Colvin (Chris O'Donnell). After Max leaves, B.B. meets Lt. Bravura at Aesir and tells him the entire story behind Michelle's death.

Arriving at Aesir Pharmaceuticals headquarters, Max interrogates Jason for what Michelle was working on before her death. After beating him, Jason explains that Michelle's death had something to do with a government contract to create a serum to make stronger and fiercer soldiers, but the drug was completely unstable and very addictive, only one percent of the test subjects showed the desired results. The remaining of the test subjects went insane and the project was shut down. Jason agrees to testify if Max protects him, but as they try to escape a S.W.A.T. team that was called by B.B arrives and kills Jason before attempting to kill Max. Max escapes the gunfight with the envelope and shows the video to Mona at her place. The video goes into detail about the Valkyr project and has a testimonial by Jack Lupino where he explains that while on the drug he feels invincible with no side effects. Max goes to Jack's hideout, Ragna Rock, where he wins a gunfight with all the henchmen. He is losing to Jack when B.B. arrives and saves him but while leaving Max is again knocked unconscious.

B.B. and Lincoln DeNeuf tell Max they are the ones who are selling Valkyr as a street drug and that B.B had Michelle killed because she inadvertently came across documents that could have incriminated him. They plan to weigh Max down and throw him in the river with a few vials of Valkyr in his pocket, making his death appear to be a drug-induced suicide. Max escapes into the icy river, climbing back to the docks moments later. In a desperate attempt to prevent hypothermia, he consumes both vials of Valkyr, turning Max into a super soldier. As a result he constantly sees multiple valkeries. Meanwhile, Bravura, suspicious about Colvin's death and suspecting corruption within the police force, calls in the FBI to take over the investigation, putting B.B. on alert. Fueled by vengeance and Valkyr, Max follows B.B. back to the Aesir building and almost effortlessly cuts through the Aesir guards and confronts B.B. on the building's heliport. Max shoots B.B. dead and is shown shortly after being surrounded by the police.

After the credits Max arrives at his favorite bar where he is reunited with Mona. She shows him a newspaper article about Aesir's stock prices rising, next to a photo of Aesir CEO Nicole Horne (Kate Burton).

Max Payne is a conventional cop-vengeance thriller with a supernatural twist. It's Sin City Lite, with winged Valkyrie who snatch tormented souls from one underworld to another.

One thing you can say for this John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines) actioner: It hides its video-game roots reasonably well, better than it hides its Toronto-subbing-for- New York locations.

Mark Wahlberg is the title character, a cop who buried his pregnant wife three years before. He's a cop who's been hiding out in the cold-case department, hunting for the tattooed butchers who cut up his missus.

There's a new drug on the streets, and it's killing the people who use it. Dark wraiths swoop in and take them out, or so they think. Max stumbles into this scene, is linked to the death of a stunning Russian strumpet (Olga Kurylenko)Ö and begins to wonder if this new go-go juice is somehow connected to his late wife's murder. Before the cops can settle on Max as a suspect, his former partner (Donal Logue)Ö is murdered while trying to pass along clues.

Mila Kunis, cast because she looks oh-so-hot in black -- but miscast, nevertheless -- plays Mona, Natasha's sister, a hit woman, we assume.

Many gamers have been looking forward to the Max Payne movie—due out on Friday. Unfortunately, early reviews of Mark Wahlberg's latest action movie don't sound very promising.

The first few reviews to appear on the net have all made a point of noting that the movie has some great production values and impressive action sequences, but a lackluster plot does much to bog the pacing down. Urban Cinefile's claims that "the storytelling is secondary to the action with adverse results as director John Moore battles to create a credible world couched between reality and fantasy."

Meanwhile, Ain't It Cool News is taking shots at the politics of the film. "The message throughout seems to be Drugs Are Ba," writes critic Latauro, "as everybody's life is getting ruined thanks to this exciting new drug