Payback

Year: 2007

Duration: 01:21:48

Directed by: Winston W. Champ

Actors: Christopher Atkins, Angie Everhart, Tanner Gill

Language: English

Country: USA

Also known as: Redemption Factor, O drapetis

Description: 

I’ve heard rumors that there are some other films also titled Payback. I doubt that’s true. It is, after all, a pretty unique title. In fact, I don’t even remember seeing any films where the theme of payback would play a part in the plot. But still, just to be on the safe side, let’s call this by it’s Latvian title, Atmaksa.

In Atmaksa, Christopher Atkins (from another cinematic masterpiece, “Die Watching” – and also the blonde dude from “The Blue Lagoon”, but you don’t remember he was in it, because you concentrated on Brooke Shields) plays Sean, a Las Vegas cop.

Sean wants atmaksa so he shoots Billy four times in the chest. This doesn’t kill him, but does give him a slight limp which seems to come and go during the rest of the film.

Feeling bad about his partner’s death and fed up with the behavior of his fellow officers, Sean quits the force and moves with his wife (Angie “why am I not nude in this?!” Everhart) and young daughter to a ranch.

I don’t know how real cops act when their partner is shot, and I definitely don’t remember ever seeing it happen in a film before, but this seems like a logical move. Sean just wants to get away from it all. And, in a lucky coincidence, this happened just when the editor ran out of stock footage of Las Vegas.

Sometime during the next ten years, Sean’s wife and daughter leave him. But no sweat, life is still looking up for him. They’re still keeping in touch. He still has a job at the ranch. And really, let’s be honest here, raising a kid is hell and his wife wasn’t getting any younger. Actually, his wife wasn’t getting any older, either. And neither did him. Or Billy. They all look the same ten years later. The daughter, however, did change a bit:

Back in Las Vegas, Sean learns that Billy has escaped. Unfortunately for Sean, the Captain of the police force is now the guy who was supposed to be the backup for Sean and his partner ten years ago, but instead took photographs of a fashion model and tried to make the moves on her. Now, I don’t hold that against him. I would’ve done the same thing myself. But that’s not really the kind of thing you’re supposed to get a promotion for. Still, it happened, so Sean doesn’t get any co-operation and has to track down Billy himself.

Keeping a low profile by driving a red Ferrari (and later a white Porsche), Billy and Sadie slowly make their way to the ranch, stopping every now and then to kill a few guys. As luck would have it, Sean’s wife, daughter and the wife’s assistant are at the ranch and Billy and Sadie take them hostage.

By this time, Sean has finally realized where they’re heading and once he finds his family hostage, he wants some atmaksa of his own. The audience holds their breaths waiting on who will win this final fight. And if it’s Sean, has he learned from his past mistakes, or will he again shoot Billy just four times in the chest?

You know from the very beginning that Atmaksa is quite a movie. It opens with a montage of really quick cuts of Las Vegas set to a looping “techno-choir”-music (you can hear at one point where the loop ends and begins again). Angie Everhart is the top-billed star and they spelled her name wrong. Sean’s partner is played by a poor man’s Wolf Larson (with about 5% of Mark Hamill thrown in), who’d still make a better hero than Christopher Atkins:

The daughter (I first thought she’s way too homely to be Everhart’s daughter, but then I remembered she’s supposed to have some genes from Atkins, as well) is a sex-crazed girl with bi-sexual tendencies and has a crush on her mother’s assistant. But even though the assistant is more than willing to “play” with her and enjoys it when the daughter watches her taking a shower, the director refuses to give us a girl-on-girl scene (and even the scene with the two kissing happens in a dark corridor):

Screenshots:

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Payback 2007