14 Days of Paranoia #5: Payback (dir by Brian Hegeland)

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1999 film, Payback, opens with Porter (Mel Gibson) lying on a kitchen table while a grubby-looking doctor digs two bullets out of his back. The scene takes place in almost nauseating close-up, with the emphasis being put on the amount of pain that Porter endures to get rid of those bullets. Immediately, we know that Porter is not someone who can safely go to a regular hospital. Porter is someone who exists in the shadows of mainstream society.

He’s also someone who spends a lot of time getting beaten up. Even back when he was still a big star, Mel Gibson always seemed to spend a good deal of his films getting beaten up and tortured in various ways and that’s certainly the case with Payback. Porter gets punched. Porter gets shot. Porter has a encounter with an over-the-top dominatrix (played by Lucy Liu). At one point, Porter allows two of his toes to be smashed by a hammer, just so he can trick the his enemies into doing something dumb. As played by Gibson, Porter stumbles through the film and often looks like he’s coming down from a week-long bender. It’s interesting to think that Payback is a remake of 1967’s Point Blank, which starred Lee Marvin as Walker, an unflappable career criminal who never showed a hint of emotion or weakness. Porter, on the other hand, is visibly unstable and spends the entire film on the verge of a complete mental collapse. A lot of people try to kill Porter and Porter kills almost all of them without a moment’s hesitation.

(Of course, both Porter and Point Blank‘s Walker are versions of Parker, a career criminal who was at the center of several crime novels written by Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake.)

After helping to pull off a $140,000 heist from a Chinese triad, Porter was betrayed and left for dead by his former friend Val Resnick (Gregg Henry) and his wife, Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger). Porter, who just wants the $70,000 cut that he was promised, starts his quest for the money by tracking down Val and Lynn, and then continues it by going after the three bosses (played by William Devane, James Coburn, and Kris Kristofferson) of “The Outfit,” a shadowy organization that Val had gotten involved with. Along the way, Porter deals with a motely crew of corrupt cops, violent criminals, and sleazy middlemen. (David Paymer has a memorable bit as a low-level functionary with atrocious taste in suits.) Porter also hooks up with a prostitute named Rosie (Maria Bello), who might be the only person that he can actually trust.

I have mixed feelings about Payback. (So did director Brian Hegeland, who was reportedly fired towards the end of shooting and later released a far different director’s cut.) Though the film does a good job of capturing the visual style of a good neo-noir, the story itself is so violent and grim that it actually gets a little bit boring. The film’s advertising encouraged audiences to “Get ready to root for the bad guy,” but there’s really no reason to root for Porter. He’s an inarticulate and ruthless killer with no sense of humor. If anything, the people that he kills seem to be far more reasonable and likable than he does. In Point Blank, Lee Marvin may have been a bastard but he was good at what he did and you at least got the feeling that he wouldn’t go after any innocent bystanders. In Payback, Porter is such a mess that his continued survival is largely due to dumb luck. It’s hard to root for an idiot.

That said, the film does do a good job of capturing the feeling of people living on the fringes of society. The Outfit is not a typical Mafia family but instead, a collection of businessmen who work out of nice offices and, in the case of William Devane’s Carter, come across as being more of a senior executive than a crime boss. (James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson, meanwhile, come across as being two former hippies who made it rich on Wall Street. They’re elderly versions of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.) The film does a good job of creating a world where no one trusts anyone and everyone is being watched by someone. In one memorable scene, the three men sent to watch for Porter discover that he’s been watching them the entire time. Never forget to look over your shoulder to see who might be following.

Flaws and all, this 1999 film does a good job of capturing the atmosphere of paranoia that, for many, would come to define the early part of the 21st Century.

14 Days of Paranoia:

Cleaning Out The DVR: Seduced By My Neighbor (dir by Sam Irvin)

Posted on January 5, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I recorded Seduced By Neighbor off of Lifetime on November 11th, 2018.)

Awwww, what a happy couple!

That picture above is of Mike (Trevor St. John) and Sarah (Andrea Bogart) relaxing in Sarah’s hot tub. Sarah’s a single mother who recently lost her husband in a traffic auto accident. Mike is the self-appointed head of the neighborhood watch and he also recently lost his spouse in a tragic accident. As soon as Sarah and her daughter, Allie (Sierra McCormick), moved into their new house, Mike introduced himself and made it a point to always drive by the house in his little golf cart and make sure that everything was safe. How couldn’t Sarah fall in love with such a great, considerate guy?

Or, at least, that’s the way that Mike likes to imagine it. See, that picture above is just Mike’s fantasy. That’s the future that he imagines awaits him and Sarah. What Mike doesn’t take into account is that, while Sarah appreciates his dedication to keeping the neighborhood safe, she’s not interested in being seduced by her neighbor. Instead, she’s far more interested in Chris (Rocky Myers), the superhot fireman who comes by the house after one of Allie’s friends sets the kitchen on fire.

Realizing that he’s running the risk of losing his fantasy, Mike decides to take action. He challenges Chris to a game of ping pong, one that quickly spirals out of control. Mike may win the game but he’s such an obnoxious player that it certainly doesn’t make him look any more attractive in the eyes of …. well, just about anyone.

Well, if ping pong didn’t work, how about murder?

Yes, it turns out that Mike is a psycho. That really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever watched a Lifetime film. In the wold of Lifetime, your neighbor is always likely to turn out to be an obsessive psychopath. The more friendly he is, the more likely it is that he’s filled your house with hidden cameras and that he’s spending all of his time watching you on his laptop. We all know how these things work.

So, Seduced By My Neighbor may sound like a typical Lifetime film but, in general, I like Lifetime films so that wasn’t a problem for me. Plus, Trevor St. John does a good job playing the psycho, making him friendly and creepy at the same time. From the minute that Mike shows up, it’s obvious that there’s something a little bit off about him but, at the same time, you can understand how someone still struggling to recover from losing her husband could be taken in by someone who says that he just wants to make sure that everyone in the neighborhood is safe and happy.

And, finally, there’s that ping pong game. Yes, I’m coming back to the ping pong game because it was definitely the highlight of the film. Strutting around and yelling every time he scores a point, Mike becomes every dudebro that you’ve ever seen playing pool in a frat house. Wisely, Chris just kind of smiles and lets Mike have his moment. That scene was just so over the top and fun that it pretty much epitomized everything that you could want from a Lifetime film.

I won’t spoil it but Seduced By My Neighbor had a good ending, one that revolved around an earlier plot point that, until the final few minutes of the film, I thought the movie had merely abandoned. It was a properly chilling moment, one that definitely felt appropriate for our paranoid age.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #191: Her Worst Nightmare (dir by Damian Romay)

Posted on August 28, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched Sunday’s Lifetime premiere film, Her Worst Nightmare!

Why Was I Watching It?

I recorded Her Worst Nightmare off of Lifetime on Sunday night. I watched it on Monday because I desperately needed to make some space on my DVR! (Seriously, I’ve got like 5 hours of recording space left…)

Plus, I have to admit that I really liked the title. Judging from the poster above, the film was originally called Degrees of Fear but I actually preferred Her Worst Nightmare. Honestly, if the word nightmare appears in the title, there’s no way that I’m not going to watch.

What Was It About?

A year ago, Dakota (Claire Blackwelder) was kidnapped and held prisoner by a brutal sociopath. Though she was eventually rescued and her kidnapper was sent to prison, Dakota is still struggling to deal with the trauma of what she’s been through. Now a college student, Dakota is still paranoid and withdrawn. With a student reporter trying to get her to talk about her experiences and a possibly lecherous professor (Trevor St. John) constantly trying to get her to come out and have a drink with him, Dakota doesn’t know who to trust.

It especially doesn’t help that it appears that, once again, someone is stalking Dakota. Has her kidnapper escaped or is something else happening? Dakota is determined to find out!

What Worked?

In the lead role, Claire Blackwelder gave a sympathetic performance and she did a good job of portraying Dakota’s paranoia. It was impossible not to empathize with Dakota and Blackwelder’s performance really held the film together.

Meanwhile, Trevor St. John was hilariously self-satisfied in the role of Prof. Campbell. We’ve all had a teacher like him, the handsome professor who goes out of his way to let you know that 1) he’s only a few years older than you and 2) he likes to hang out at the same places that you do and 3) he’d love to have office hours with you at any time during the semester.

Her Worst Nightmare was a relatively restrained film. Usually, I complain whenever a Lifetime film is too low key. I usually like my Lifetime melodramas to be totally and completely over-the-top. But, in the case of Her Worst Nightmare, the restrained approach actually worked. It generated suspense and, like Dakota, I found myself looking at every corner of the screen, keeping an eye out for any possible threats.

What Didn’t Work?

I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly shocked when the identity of Dakota’s stalker was revealed. That’s one of the drawbacks of having a small cast. There’s only so many possible suspects and, once you discount all of the obvious ones, it’s pretty easy to guess who it’s going to be.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Whenever Dakota was feeling paranoid, I was like, “Been there.” Unlike Dakota, I’ve never been kidnapped and held prisoner but I very well could have been if luck had not been on my side. Anyone who has ever been stalked or who has ever escaped from an abusive relationship will be able to relate to Dakota.

Lessons Learned

Just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean that people aren’t out to get you. Actually, to be honest, I already knew that before I watched the film but sometimes, the best thing that a film can do is remind you of something that you already know to be true!

Cleaning Out The DVR: Wicked Mom’s Club (dir by Lane Shefter Bishop)

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 178 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on February 1st, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Wicked Mom’s Club, off of the Lifetime Movie Network on October 7th, 2017!)

“You know girls. Friends one day. Enemies the next.”

— Olivia (Ashley Wood) in Wicked Mom’s Club (2017)

To be honest, before I actually sat down and watched this film, I assumed it was going to be comedy.

I mean check out the name: Wicked Mom’s Club. Doesn’t that just bring to mind snarky comments shared over wine and dark secrets?

And then I read the plot description, which basically said that the film was about a single mother who had to defeat the evil moms on the PTA. That sound like a comedy, doesn’t it?

But then I actually started the movie and it begain with a woman sobbing as she committed suicide in her suburban garage. At that point, it was obvious that Wicked Mom’s Club was not going to be a comedy.

Instead, it’s another “based-on-a-true-story” Lifetime film about all of the sordid secrets of the suburbs. It starts with Mandy (Jessica Blakemore) and her teenage daughter Riley (Virginia Tucker) moving into a new house. They’re looking to start a new life. Mandy is freshly divorced from a husband who used to cheat on her. Riley is a talented gymnast who got suspended from her previous school when she tested positive for drugs. It’s time for a new beginning! Not only do they have a new house but Mandy has a great job and an amazingly popular “mommy blog.”

Mandy meets Olivia (Ashley Wood). Olivia is the leader of the Gym Moms, a group of mothers whose daughters are all into gymnastics. At first, Olivia appears to be the nicest person in town. She talks about how much she loves Mandy’s blog. Riley becomes best friend’s with Olivia’s daughter, Chelsea (Bekka Walker). Mandy even confides in Olivia about Riley’s drug problems…

Uhmm, maybe she shouldn’t have done that.

From the beginning, there are hints that Olivia might not be as friendly as she seems. For instance, she deliberately knocks over a bag in order to distract Riley in the middle of her routine. Olivia always seems to be ordering the other Gym Moms around. Plus, a former Gym Mom approaches Mandy and warns her not to trust Olivia….

When Riley turns out to be a better gymnast than Chelsea, strange things start to happen. For instance, when Mandy tries to get a sponsor for her blog, she is shocked to discover that someone else has started a blog about what a terrible mother Mandy is. Since the entire town is obsessed with not only Mandy’s blog but also the random comments that are left on it, everyone starts to turn against Mandy. No one wants anything to do with you when you’re a bad blogger.

But, it doesn’t stop there. For instance, Mandy ends up getting arrested for drug possession. She starts to hear strange noises around her house. She grows paranoid, wondering if maybe Riley actually is blogging about her. Is Mandy being set up? And is this the end of the world’s most important mommy blog?

Wicked Mom’s Club may sound melodramatic but, honestly, I think everyone has had to deal with someone like Olivia at some point in their life. They may not all be as clever as Olivia is at destroying people’s lives but they’re out there, grown up bullies who live vicariously through their children. I grew up dancing and I’ve always been so thankful that my mom never put me under the type of pressure that the majority of my friends had to deal with. Ashley Wood did a good job bringing Olivia to villainous life and Jessica Blakemore and Virginia Tucker were believable as mother and daughter. Their difficult but loving relationship felt real.

I have to admit, though, that I was a little amused by how the entire world of Wicked Mom’s Club pretty much revolved around blogs and bloggers. I had no idea we were so powerful!