Payback

Porter, a ruthless criminal, is double-crossed by the people closest to him when his wife and his partner abscond with the loot and attempt to leave him for dead. Left to pick up the pieces after a botched heist, he crawls out of the wreckage with a vendetta burning inside. As bitterness hardens into a plan, former allies and crooked cops close in, each move watched and calculated. The pursuit becomes a game of leverage where money is only part of the stake and every decision could tighten or break the hold on his life. Payback follows a man who refuses to fade away, rewriting the score on his terms, and he won't stop until he gets what he wants.

Released in 1999, Payback was directed by Brian Helgeland and is an adaptation inspired by Donald E Westlake's Parker novels. The script tightens the source material into a lean urban revenge tale with a gritty, no-nonsense mood for modern audiences.

Worldwide gross reached $161,626,121 against a $90 million budget, marking it as a solid box office performer for a 90s neo-noir crime thriller. It held well in international markets and helped spur ongoing interest in crime dramas with an edge.

The film helped anchor Mel Gibson's bruised antihero persona in late 90s thrillers and fed into the era's blunt, stylized crime dramas. Its crisp, sun-bleached visuals, stilted dialogue, and hard-edged mood have been cited in discussions of neo-noir influence and the commodified violence of the period, and its influence lingers.

Critics praised the film for tight pacing and Gibson's cold, resolute performance, though some saw it as a reinvention of a familiar tale. The movie foregrounds trust betrayed, the corrosive nature of vengeance, and high cost violence exacts on everyone involved, including the people who pursue it today, influencing thrillers.