SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Payback and Cruel Intentions have something in common, as they each represent the mainstream's idea of a nasty night at the movies. Both films focus on unapologetically corrupt antiheroes--if Payback and Cruel Intentions were intended as escapist entertainments, and I believe they were/are, then the "Quake" and "Doom" videogame mentality has extended to Hollywood filmmaking: let's spend a night staring at the world through the eyes of a mercenary SOB.

Unfortunately, Cruel Intentions, inspired by Choderlos de Laclos' novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, lacks the courage of its convictions. Ryan Phillipe stars as Sebastian Valmont, a pampered rich kid who puts his Roadster on the line for a chance to sleep with his new stepsister, the equally spoiled Katherine Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar). All he has to do is successfully seduce Virgin Queen Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), and he can put "it," in Katherine's words, "anywhere" he wants. Meanwhile, Katherine sets about exacting revenge on an old boyfriend through the naive Cecile (Selma Blair, a comic find), a sexually inexperienced music student without a nose for the dupe. The events of Cruel Intentions unfold quickly; feelings are crushed and bonds are broken perhaps even faster than it happens in real Teenland.

In paraphrasing Dangerous Liaisons for young adults, certain plot points lose impact. Marquise De Merteuil in the book and in previous screen outings is the portrait of regret by story's end, not exactly because her scheming led to Valmont's demise, but because his death meant she had lost her plaything, the outlet for her supreme powers of manipulation--the original story is one of a woman who outwits herself. Cruel Intentions' Katherine is undone, more or less, by cocaine abuse, her secret junkie-whore lifestyle is exposed before her prep school classmates.

Director Roger Kumble is generally unable to do for the source material what Baz Luhrmann did for Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, which is to say, pare it down to its essential themes and still retain the subtext. (Cruel Intentions has only banal things to say on the subjects of infidelity and conniving--'don't be a mean person' is the film's bland message.) Kumble should not be bragging about having written his adaptation in twelve days. It shows in the sloppiness of Cruel Intentions' screenplay.

Phillipe is another of the film's problems. Physically, I can think of no other young actor better suited to this role. (Certainly, he's a more glamorous lead than Colin Firth was in Milos Forman's fizzless Valmont.) But Phillipe's Valmont seems less an expert on seduction than in the art of badgering--he begs or demands sex when he should coax it. A timid thespian, Phillipe delivers his clunky dialogue in a whiny monotone, and one can only conclude that the women this Valmont sleeps with are too smitten by his primped appearance to listen to the inflections in his voice.

Payback and Cruel Intentions were recut to sweeten the bitter taste left by their respective unrepentent protagonists. I think it was a bigger mistake to monkey around with the latter; Mel Gibson's a big star--who wants to see him acting on sadistic whims for a whole feature? On the other hand, Sebastian is now such a putz that Phillipe's performance grates. When the character attempts to atone for his sins, I couldn't help but think he'd done nothing a good-looking teenage boy wouldn't do: take advantage of his station to get babes. (Sebastian doesn't even attempt to claim Katherine's "prize" in the theatrical version.) His final plea for Annette's forgiveness seems no more or less sincere than any of his previous gestures of kindness and cruelty towards others, because the film's edge has been dulled significantly.

Cruel Intentions is certainly a movie with virtues, too. Blair is so winningly strange (and hopelessly dumb) that I wished Cecile had a better reason to be there--we might have seen more of her that way. Witherspoon gets by exceedingly well on presence alone. And Gellar's stronger as a femme fatale than one would suspect, given how well she plays the emotionally vulnerable "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". The filmmakers have dolled her up as Jackie O. in a corset, and it works. (On that note, Cruel Intentions' costume design, production design, and cinematography are all top-notch--D.P. Theo Van De Sande (whose credits include Blade) is incapable of an uninteresting interior.) I found myself resenting Cruel Intentions while simultaneously enjoying it, because I'm sure there's a better--great, mayhaps--movie to be had in imposing the love-triangle of Les Liaisons Dangereuses on a modern setting. (Even by boosting Sebastian, et al to college age, it might seem less like the earnest pap put on annually by high school drama students everywhere.) Kumble's interpration feels rushed, an idea tasted before it was ripe.

Brian Helgeland's Payback wasn't much of an idea to start with, but repeat viewings improve its drama. Gibson is Porter, a burglar shot and left for dead by his wife (Deborah Kara Unger in a too-brief cameo) and edgy partner (Gregg Henry, doing a thing of slimy brilliance) after a successful heist. Porter miraculously springs back to life as the bullets are being removed from his back. He then makes it his mission, as a walking dead man, to avenge those who screwed him and reclaim his share of the loot. (In a running gag, Porter demands $70 000, his negotiated share of the loot, but everybody assumes he's after the full $130 000 haul.) In his travels (or travails), Porter encounters several other one-named villainous cretins like Fairfax (James Coburn as a white-haired, millionaire thief) and Carter (Kris Kristofferson, as a brown-haired, millionaire thief--the kingpin of the obligatory operation).

The novelty of seeing a big movie star mercilessly dispatching criminals wears off quickly a) because the bad guys are indistinguishable by all but their coifs, and b) because Mel's schtick doesn't evolve from act one. He's The Terminator stranded in a plot without a sci-fi hook to keep us transfixed after that initial sadistic thrill is gone. (It's apparent that Mad Max trilogy scribe Hayes co-wrote Payback's screenplay: Porter is imbued with Max's nihilism in addition to that character's imperviousness.) Payback could have been called Playback: it's almost a 102-minute loop of the same short sequence. (Mel: "I want my money." Bad Guy: "No." Mel shoots gun. Villain dies. Mel meets up with his hooker friend (Maria Bello). Second verse, same as the first.) It's not Porter's single-mindedness that robs the film of snap, crackle, and pop, it's the movie's lack of danger: as a character who has already "died" once, Porter has nothing to lose and so much to gain.

Payback has a gritty, metallic look to it that also grows monotonous; its cinematography would be more appropriate in one of those bleak urban psychodramas to come out of England every couple of months. (Maybe the point was to pay homage to the kitchen sink British crime thrillers of the early seventies, most of which starred a roguish Michael Caine. Director of photography Ericson Core should have been fired early on, however, for lighting Bello, so va-va-va-voom in Permanant Midnight, to resemble a potato in a Gregg Allman wig.) Upon a second sit-through, though, I found myself looking forward to a number of Payback's setpieces, especially any scene involving "Ally McBeal"'s Lucy Liu (as a never-off-duty dominatrix) and the final act, which includes the much-ballyhooed extended toe-torture, a trashy but effective way to turn what is our distaste for Porter into sympathy. (Aside: is there an actor more gamely masochistic than Gibson?) The payoff to this climax is excellently foreshadowed.

Perhaps only someone as experienced with antagonists-as-protagonists as Tarantino--look what he did with the similarly hostile botched-robbery tale Reservoir Dogs--could carry off this film (a loose remake of John Boorman's Point Blank) with utmost panache. Payback presents to us the conventions of pulp fiction (all women are femme fatales, even the cops are in on it, etc.) and crosses them with the conventions of cheesy TV crime melodramas (death is never in the cards for the main character, etc.) but transcends neither. It's well paced and diverting, but also repetitive and pointless.

Cruel Intentions is presented on DVD as a Special Edition that puts some other SEs to shame. First off, its image quality is rich and detailed enough that I hereby award it an A+ video rating without breaking a sweat. Presented in both 16x9-enhanced, 1.85:1 widescreen and full frame (on the same side of an RSDL disc, no less), the two versions are, to the naked eye on a 32" calibrated television, flawless. The Victorian gothic (an architectural term?) sets, dappled by sunlight so bright these could be fancy interrogation rooms, are eye-popping in this transfer. (Note that the "standard" option presents a little more information on the top and bottom of the frame but less at the sides.) Cruel Intentions' 5.1 Dolby Digital mix is, predictably, not very active. There is neglible activity in the rears throughout, while the LFE channel is rarely put to use. (The souped-up version of Placebo's "Every You, Every Me," which opens the film, does sound fantastic.) Dialogue is clear and never competes with music or effects for our attention.

I had a fun time exploring the disc's supplements. For starters, there are six deleted scenes selectabe from the main menu (all but the last of which is introduced by Kumble himself) that suggest a much cooler Cruel Intentions is sitting in a vault somewhere. (I had a good, hard laugh at the sight of a bathing Blair wearing a shampoo-suds beard, a moment so brief and amusing I fail to understand its omission. Porn queen Alisha Klass strips in another.) As well, there are two documentaries on the making of the film: the first is a straightforward infomercial, while the second, called "Creative Intentions: Finding a Visual Style," is a 21-minute chat session with the behind-the-scenes people. Mostly, De Sande and company do a lot of back-patting and rehash what is said in the feature-length commentary, but in a more serious manner.

About that commentary: it's a free for all, and a new person seems to join in every five minutes. Kumble, producer Neil H. Moritz, De Sande, costumer Denise Wingate, designer Gary Steele, composer Edward Shearmur, and coproducer Heather Zeegen all chime in with anecdotes, some too quietly--I suspect that the seven of them shared a single mike and fought for space in the recording booth. I grew very tired, very quickly, of Kumble telling us how green he was going into pre-production, how he'd never shot a film before in his life, not even a home video, etc., (Okay, I get it, you're an inexperienced hack, let's move on), but I did warm to the camaraderie between the crew. Many of their stories were disheartening--for example, Hiep Thi Le, playing Katherine's Chinese maid (it's a non-speaking part), was the star of Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth! Talk about a downward career trajectory.

Additionally, Columbia Tri-Star offers up the much-welcome companion videos for "Every You, Every Me" (though, sadly, not in 5.1) and Marcy Playground's "Coming Up From Behind." A terrific trailer (in 2.0)--whose credits contain a curious misprint (John Ottman isn't the film's composer)--plus cast and crew bios round out the package.

Payback shines almost as brightly as Cruel Intentions does on DVD. Core's frames have been faithfully reproduced for the small screen. I've read reports of people turning up the colour at home, a mistake: this film is supposed to seem desaturated to the point of sickliness. (If only blue was not the dominant hue--what a clichée.) The darkest shots of this print never go muddy, as they would have in a lesser transfer. My only complaint is that Payback's blood red titles are almost indecipherable. The image is letterboxed at 2.35:1 and enhanced for anamorphic displays. Payback resonates in DD 5.1: there is a definite left-right stereo split and liberal usage of the surrounds, particularly during the Triad (?) gunfight and the boxing match. (Listen for the bell, which comes out of only the left rear speaker.) The explosions lack the pronounced bass of Ronin's, but they're loud, at least. From Payback's main menu, one can access the trailer plus a featurette on the production, which woefully ignores the fact that Gibson the producer-star and Helgeland the fledgling hyphenate butted heads. Regardless: nice to see an extra, any extra, on a title from the Mountain.-Bill Chambers