Payback

Thank heavens. Not bad well-acted, etc., but I found it relatively slow, with few action scenes, as budget allowed, at 1 hour 25 minutes it seemed longer, after an hour I started to skip a little. There are much better dramas out there, but it was OK.

Perhaps a film to watch when your in isolation or just procrastinating. It's very slow to get going but still its entertaining. I was hoping for a remake of the Mel Gibson classic "payback".

I do think it would have been better as a drama series, allowing the characters to grow and possibly strengthen the storyline.

This story of a not-so wise guy persevering through his gritty lot in life is engagingly presented, with effective acting all around, especially on the part of the lead, who comes across as vulnerable and conflicted while the school of hard knocks develops his character into a force to be reckoned with in gangster land. The Russian mob atmosphere was captured well even while including romance and family relationships without trivializing those elements. The film grips and holds you throughout even in the absence of any budgetary fluff. It maintains the feel of realism, and doesn't shy away from a sappily ever after ending.

Production ,and very cliched portrayals and a russian mob story that ends with a status quo on the human level. its the average acted no big turnout on original ideas, more a reminder that russian mob crime still exists and the recipie for a good payback but it is still too straight forward and easy, so summa summarum...its a time filler. it has though a pretty good scoreline that feels like a clam on your hand all the time, but shootouts and high speed extravaganza is held at a low level. the filmmaker is to me a new name in the feature film league, so as a sophomore in the business it aint bad. they have made a reliable 1990's stamp to the product, not so easy to make these days so heir heir...

so i tend to look for glitches in the storyline and on russian culture and kutyme, so when a proud patriotic russian mobster serves sweedish absolute vodka to his friends ,thats a bummer., you have popov, smirnoff and kalinka and 10s of thousands more brands and you know what... poland has dubrovka and greece has the ouzo, so when did absolut become a sign of russian crime..

but its a timefilling crime action drama, nothing new on the east front in here, but its ålreit entertainment thinks the grumpy old man. dobroveche...

Not a bad thriller, and made well, small budget but still - entertaining.