randomStuff101 Since this movie is based on the same book as Payback, I was curious as to what the 1967 Point Blank had to offer. Even though it's an old film, it's hard to excuse some of the creative choices here.Some of the still photography and in-between moments are atmospheric and enjoyable to watch. The problem is in the main guts of the film, there's a stumbling and overdone significance pushed in laboured scenes. Kind of a theatrical rehearsal level vibe underpins some scenes. All the more reason that Payback 1999 is such a welcome reboot of this story.

a_chinn John Boorman's brilliant hallucinatory revenge film defies genre traditions and ends up becoming something wholly new never seen on film before or since. Lee Marvin plays the laconic Walker (named Parker in the Richard Stark/Donald Westlake books), a man double crossed and left for dead by his wife and best friend. He reemerges years later and his friend has now climbed the crime syndicate ranks, so Marvin starts at the bottom and works his way up the syndicate ranks, single handedly taking out the entire syndicate hierarchy. The script is efficient and the film features a strong cast, led by an almost completely silent Marvin, which includes Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor, Michael Strong, and John Vernon. With this script and cast, this would have been enough for a solid crime film in the hands of most any director. Even a journeyman like Gordon Douglas or Phil Karlson could have made a good film, but it's Boorman's visual and editing style that make this film something truly unique and a film classic. The closest I can think to compare this film to would be proto-French New Wave director Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samouraï" (released the same year) or possibly moments in a handful of Brian De Palma films. There are so many moments in the film that burn their way into the viewers brain, such as Walker determined march down a long hallways with the only sound being his footsteps intercut with him tracking down his first target, or Walker silently sitting on the couch next to his ex-wife as she tells why she betrayed him, or the fight sequence in a nightclub with swirls of psychedelic colors exploding across the face of Marvin to 1960s youth music, to the film's ending as the audience watch Walker's half shadowed face completely slip into darkness. The film is a visual feast and is the strongest element of the film's many strong points. Lee Marvin's performance as well demands recognition. Marvin was always an underrated actor, but you truly cannot take your eyes off of him in this film as he single mindedly works his way through the LA crime syndicate repeating over and over, like a mantra, "I want me $83,000 dollars" "Point Blank" is a true American film classic (by a British director) that must be seen by all cinephiles. And look fast for Sid Haig as a mob security guard.

writers_reign This was one of several films released at a time when English Directors were shooting not only in Hollywood but working in distinctly US genres not normally associated with roast beef and two veg and as such it is no better or no worse than any of the others. Like many prolific authors associated with one genre Donald E. Westlake, who had made both a name and a young fortune out of light-hearted crime novels, thought he'd try the real thing and created a second persona under which he published a much smaller output including Point Blank in which an ultra 'hard' man, left for dead, recovers and possibly mistaking himself for Richard, Duke of York, works his way up the hierarchy of the 'organisation', offing them systematically until he reaches the top. This is, of course, the kind of role that Lee Marvin can phone in and he brings it off to a fare-thee- well leaving the undemanding entertained with it.

Spikeopath Point Blank is directed by John Boorman and collectively adapted to screenplay by Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse and Rafe Newhouse from the novel The Hunter written by Richard Stark. It stars Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor, Lloyd Bochner and Michael Strong. Music is by Johnny Mandel and the Panavision cinematography (in Metrocolor) is by Philip H. Lathrop.Betrayed by wife and friend during a robbery, Walker (Marvin) is left dying on a stone cold cell floor at closed down Alcatraz...Pure neo-noir, a film that could be argued was ahead of its time, given that it wouldn't find a fan base until many years later. Yet it deserves to be bracketed as a benchmark for the second phase of noir, a shining light of the neo world, experimenting with techniques whilst beating a true film noir heart.The story is deliciously biting, pumped full of betrayals and double crosses, fatales and revenge, death and destruction. It even has a trick in the tale, ambiguity. It all plays out in a boldly coloured Los Angeles, the photography sparkles as Mandel lays an elegiacal and haunting musical score over the various stages of the drama. The talented Boorman has a field day with the elements of time, shunting various strands of the story around with sequences that at first glance seem out of place, but actually are perfect in context to what is narratively happening, the director gleefully toying with audience expectations. While suffice to say angles are tilted and close ups broadened to further style the pic.Then there is Walker, a single minded phantom type character, played with grace and menace by Marvin - who better to trawl the Los Angeles underworld with than Marv? This guy only wants what he is owed from the robbery, nothing more, nothing less, but if the meagre reward is not forthcoming, people are going to pay with something more precious than cash. His mission is both heroic and tragic, with Boorman asking the viewers to improvise their thought process about what it all inevitably means. Funding the fuel around Marvin are good players providing slink, sleaze and suspicion.Deliberate pacing isn't for everyone, neither is stylised violence and stylish directorial trickery, but for those who dine at said tables, Point Blank, and Walker the man, is for you. 9/10