Max Payne

This article is about the central figure of the story, you might be looking for the first game in the series or for the overview article of the whole franchise or for the film.

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"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Max Payne. New York's Finest, with the biggest mobster bodycount ever. Dearest guests, prepare to die..."

―Vladimir Lem^[1]

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Max Payne is an American police detective who goes on rogue, unstoppable, tenacious, and relentless killing sprees against felons, spanning a number of nights, all the while looking for truth to mysteries he finds in his life but mercilessly bringing death to all those who ever caused him pain. During his long and diverse crime fighting career, Max Payne works as a New York City Police Department Homicide detective and as a Drug Enforcement Administration undercover agent but abandons both posts when he sees the limitations of orthodox police work, instead preferring the chaotic, hot-pursuit-and-revenge-filled approach to extinguishing crime. With his criminal body count tallied in hundreds, Payne is responsible for single handedly crippling the Punchinello crime family, crushing Nicole Horne's Aesir Corporation, terminating the manufacture and trade of the drug Valkyr, and, along with Mona Sax, wiping out the mercenary and gangster army of the Russian Mafia boss bent on taking over the Inner Circle - Vladimir Lem.

A few years later, Payne moves to São Paulo to work in a private security sector with his friend, Raul Passos.

Biography

Childhood

Max Payne was born in the 1960's into a poor family. His parents were Jack and Helen Payne.

The Payne residence massacre

On August 22, 1998, Max Payne is a Midtown South/Hell's Kitchen detective of the NYPD when his wife and infant daughter are murdered by Valkyr-pumped madmen wearing green jumpsuits.

The Valkyr Case

Roscoe Street Station

Approximately three and a half years later, Max Payne is now working as a agent for the DEA. During one of his undercover infiltration operations of Jack Lupino's mob group, Payne's best friend, Alex Balder, is killed at the New York City's Roscoe Street metro Station and Max is framed. With nothing to lose, he goes after the Mafia during the worst winter storm in a century.

Hunt down Punchinello

Payne slowly moves up the criminal food chain, starting off with low ranking members, the Finito brothers, making his way to Vincent Gognitti, the Mafia underboss Jack Lupino's right hand man. Payne chases after Gognitti and, after a dangerous rooftop pursuit, leaves him bleeding in an alley after he gets the location of Lupino from him. After killing the fanatic valkyr baron Lupino in the Gothic nightclub Ragna Rock, he meets a hired killer named Mona Sax and they learn they are both after the Punchinello crime family leader Angelo Punchinello.

Max Payne makes a deal with a Russian mobster Vladimir Lem: by killing Lem's traitor Boris Dime, he secures a stash of weapons for his vendetta.

Entering Cold Steel — Payne follows a lead to the booby-trapped Cold Steel foundry

The true enemy

He enters the Cold Steel foundry and makes his way to its secret base, where he discovers the Project Valhalla files and the secretive tests led by Nicole Horne that were responsible for the deaths of his family. As soon as the base is destroyed, he meets with B.B., who betrayed him and killed Balder, and slays him.

Payne later meets Alfred Woden in the Asgard Building, who had contacted him on several occasions before, and learns about the Inner Circle and its wish for him to eliminate Horne without revealing any of her plans to the public. Woden promises the fugitive to acquit him of any legal charges if he manages to accomplish the task.

Finally, Payne makes an assault on the Aesir Headquarters. Killing everyone in his way, he again encounters Mona Sax and witnesses her get shot in the head. He then makes his way to the mainframe of the building where he disables any locks preventing him from reaching the penthouse.

Payne takes down the remaining guards covering Horne's escape in the penthouse and on the rooftop of the skyscraper. As Horne is boarding an armed helicopter and gets ready to depart, the broadcasting antenna starts to collapse when Payne cuts the cables supporting it with his weapons and fires an M79 at it. The falling antenna crushes and destroys the helicopter, killing Horne.

The police arrive soon after in full force and take Max into their custody. Alfred Woden, with his immense political influence, helps clear Payne of any charges.

The Cleaner Case

In 2003, Max Payne transfers back to the NYPD and works under lieutenant Jim Bravura in Homicide. After one of his intercepted "shots fired" calls uncovers a mysterious group of armed killers posing as members of a Squeaky Cleaning Company, a visit he pays to the Russian mobster acquaintance Vladimir Lem reveals a brewing mob war between the Italians, lead by Vinnie Gognitti, and the Russians. In a series of nights of pouring rain, Max Payne is once again thrust into the center of rapidly unfolding and brutal criminal events in New York City.

Max's Surveillance Photos — Some photos made by Max Payne's spies

Mona Sax, who survived her gunshot wound in Aesir HQ, contacts Payne in his apartment to inform him they both have assassination contracts put on their heads. Their meeting is cut short by the Cleaners who invade the apartment building and the surrounding area with the mission to kill the duo. Sax quickly escapes, while Max, after fending back the hitmen, finds out he has been spied on and monitored by his attackers' faction for a long time: many surveillance photos of him were taken, his apartment's layout was mapped, and his phone conversations have constantly been recorded.

Burning to get some answers about the people who want him dead, Max Payne makes another contact with Mona Sax, despite knowing that she is a wanted murder suspect in his colleague Valerie Winterson's case. This time, Payne meets the female assassin in her hideout - the abandoned Address Unknown funhouse on Coney Island. There, the two agree to pursue a lead in Sax's contact and a member of the Inner Circle, Corcoran, who, according to Mona, would have the answers they need, as the secret society is involved in their predicament.

Max and Mona Upper East Side — Payne and Sax at the Upper East Side

They depart to the deluxe Upper East Side apartments but find the building already invaded by the Cleaners. Teaming up, with Mona monitoring the security system's cameras and Max Payne gunning the goons down, they search the area but find Corcoran already dead. While Payne encounters, fights and kills the field leader of the hitmen, Kaufman, Sax is arrested by the police forces, lead by Winterson, who arrive at the scene.

In the aftermath of the shootout, at the NYPD police station, both his superior Bravura and his Homicide colleague are furious at Max Payne for his cooperation with the wanted fugitive and Payne is soon assigned to desk duty while Sax is put into a jail cell. It does not take long, however, for more Cleaners, looking to execute Mona, to daringly storm the station via an underground parking lot which is connected to the holding cells. Max once again kills all the intruders; the jailed assassin manages to use the commotion to escape. Deciding that following the usual police procedure would not help him solve the case, the detective leaves the police station, looking to find Mona Sax again. Vladimir Lem unexpectedly shows up in his car and offers him a ride to Coney Island. Max Payne's actions at the station are presumed to have intentionally helped Sax escape, by the NYPD, and Payne is once again announced to be wanted by the police.

At Mona's hideout, the two fugitives meet and the long suppressed attraction they held for each other explodes in an intimate moment. They are suddenly interrupted by yet more Cleaner commandos who have followed Payne and barge in shooting. Max and Mona make a run for it but get separated. When the hitmen's attack forces are obliterated, the remaining Cleaners flee and Payne uses the opportunity to jump into one of their vans undetected, ready to track the criminals to their base of operations and take the fight to them.

The van arrives at a large area of the Castling construction site and Max Payne radios his location to Sax who quickly rushes to the location as well. The detective kills any thugs in his way and searches a condemned building rigged with explosives for any evidence or clues. He hits jackpot when, at the top floor of the edifice, he discovers dozens upon dozens of dead bodies stuffed in body bags - the opponents of the Cleaners that have already been eliminated and whose remains were now being dumped here to be destroyed.

Payne and the Condemned Building Explosions — Escaping the Castling construction site's exploding condemned building

Payne communicates with Mona, who herself is fighting Cleaners in the nearby construction grounds, to call the police to collect the evidence, but Sax refuses. One of the enemy goons inadvertently sets off the demolition charges and Payne is forced to quickly escape the exploding and crumbling building. Although surviving the blasts, the detective finds himself in an open field of the construction site, surrounded by the enemy commandos and snipers. Mona Sax provides covering fire with her Dragunov rifle from various vantage points and the two crush the remaining Cleaner resistance. The victorious couple has little time to plan their next move, as Valerie Winterson arrives at the site ahead of other police forces, whose sirens are wailing in the distance, and holds them at gunpoint. Protecting Sax, in the heat of the moment, Payne shoots and kills his Homicide partner but gets shot in the torso himself and loses his consciousness.

The detective is found by the NYPD men and brought to the Memorial hospital where he undergoes surgery. Max Payne does not get much time to rest and heal his wounds there, as the Cleaners storm the hospital looking for him. In vicious gunfights, Payne witnesses medical personnel, security guards and even his lieutenant Bravura get shot by the thugs. Finally fighting his way out of the hospital, he heads straight to Alfred Woden's manor where the senior Inner Circle member at last reveals him the person behind the mercenary army of the Cleaners who has feverishly been attempting to wipe out any of his enemies - the secret society's rebel Vladimir Lem.

Payne Finds Gognitti in a Suit — Max Payne finds Vinnie Gognitti trapped in a rigged-to-blow suit

Furious at the Russian Mob boss who has tricked and betrayed him, Max Payne assaults and kills Lem's forces at his club Vodka and thwarts their plans of getting to Vinnie Gognitti at the Italian gangster's used car lot. The detective finds Gognitti himself stuck in a Captain BaseBallBat-Boy suit rigged with a bomb and, unable to disarm it, or without any time to do it, decides to head with him to Mona's safehouse once again to regroup.

Already expecting him at the funhouse is Vladimir Lem himself, surrounded by armed guards and holding the remote detonator of the suit's charges. Threatened to be blown up with Gognitti if he does not comply, Payne surrenders and is taken at gunpoint to Sax's living quarters. There, Lem tries to sting Max by revealing him that Mona Sax, who Payne has been enamored with, was actually working for Alfred Woden and that the senior Inner Circle member was inadvertently responsible for his family's death as he leaked the Project Valhalla files to the D.A. where his wife had been working, which Nicole Horne later discovered. Stating that Payne would never let go of his pursuit for revenge, the Russian mobster shoots him in the head, knocking him unconscious once more. When Lem vaporizes Gognitti and leaves, the Address Unknown funhouse catches fire and Max Payne's motionless body is only saved by Mona Sax who was in the vicinity and braves fire and the dangerous crumbling installation to get to him. Although bleeding and light-headed, the detective rejects the female assassin's assertions he is in no condition to fight, as he designates the final location of their war with Lem: Aflred Woden's manor where the Russian plans to eliminate his one-time mentor.

Max Payne and Mona Sax at Woden's Manor — Max Payne and Mona Sax before their assault of Woden's manor

When the duo reach the antique manor, they find that the enemy commandos have already taken up defensive positions, demolition charges have been placed around the site, and the bodyguards of Woden have defected to Vladimir Lem's side. Nevertheless, they aggressively storm the building slaying any resistance they encounter: Payne clears the bottom floor, while he leaves the second one to Sax. Upon reaching the inner chambers of Alfred Woden, Mona gives herself away to Max when she appears to know the hidden switch to a locked door; just when Max is about to confront her about her employer, she hits him on the head with a pistol, sending him flat on the floor. Sax confesses to the detective her orders are to clean up the whole "mess" which has been happening, including him, but she hesitates pulling the trigger on Payne and, eventually, throws away her pistol, overtaken by her feelings for the man. To his horror, Max Payne then witnesses her get gunned down from behind by Vladimir Lem. Kneeling beside the woman's body, Payne gets an apology from Alfred Woden, wheeling in from his protective panic room in his wheelchair. When the elderly man is shot dead by the Russian, the the detective seizes the opportunity to jump and wrestle with the distracted mobster holding a gun. Lem then uses his detonator to set off some explosive charges, which send them both tumbling through the ceiling into the basement, and flees from the scene.

Max Payne in Woden's Manor's Basement — Before the final pursuit of Vladimir Lem

Simmering with revenge and holding only the Russian mob boss' Desert Eagle to start with, Max Payne chases after his target, killing the last remnants of his men and avoiding more explosions along the way. The NYPD detective corners Lem in a large area just below the external roof of the manor where a platform supporting and holding a huge suspended glass dome is located. When Vladimir Lem climbs onto the platform from whose protective cover he starts throwing bombs at his assailant, Payne eludes the blasts ripping apart the room and shoots the beams holding together the construction. When it collapses and Lem is exposed, Max Payne shoots and mortally wounds his arch-nemesis. The mobster falls to his violent death with the whole detached platform, and the detective returns to Mona Sax's dying body. Amidst the disturbed NYPD officers searching the area for survivors, Max Payne kisses the woman for the last time.

New life in Brazil

"I ain't a cop no more."

―Max to Raul Passos, 2012.

In 2012, during a bar fight which turns to a gun fight with coked-up gangbangers, Max successfully kills all of them, but it turns out one of them was the son of Anthony DeMarco, the current Don of the Italian Mafia, so Max is once again hunted and needs to get out of New Jersey fast. An old friend of Max, Raul Passos, offers him a new job as a private security bodyguard in São Paulo, for Rodrigo Branco and his family. DeMarco sends more hitmen to kill Payne, but he is able to kill them and escapes.

In Brazil, Max meets the Branco family: Victor Branco and Marcello Branco, the brothers of Rodrigo, and Fabiana Branco, Rodrigo's wife. Fabiana is then kidnapped by the Commando Sombra, one of the strongest gangs in the city.^[2] Max decides to take down the Commando Sombra gang and rescue Fabiana. During this time, Max also shaves his head.

Appearance and Abilities

Abilities: Lightning reflexes, above-average-hand-to-hand-combatant In 2001, Max is undercover and so spends the game in typical street clothes: A leather jacket, a white T-Shirt and a pair of black pants. He is 6ft (183cm) tall.^[3]

In 2003, Max is back on the force, so he's kitted out in relatively smart office suit but still has his trademark leather trenchcoat.

In 2012, Payne is seen in many different outfits. While still in New York, Max wears his traditional leather jacket, with a tie, a pair of jeans and stylish black boots. Later, Max is seen sporting a casual gray suit, while in another instance, donned with a blue bulletproof vest over his clothes. During most of the game, he now has a beard, and later is seen with a bald head, wearing a white undershirt with shoulder holster for his hand gun(s), tan colored cargo pants, and tan boots. Moreover, he can also be seen wearing colorful red or blue shirts while in São Paulo favelas.

Personality

Tackling insurmountable odds, Max Payne faces every situation with a 'John McClane' type wit and a very dark sense of humor which joins his nothing-to-lose demeanor.

Max has a poetic sense of describing his actions. He does not believe his doings are heroic and he believes he should be punished for his actions. Max's pessimistic view on life and his inability to have fun is very noticeable as Vladimir Lem points out to Max in 2003.

Max, along with his dark humour, is also very morbid. In 2001, he tends to make jokes even in the face of danger - one example is the conversation between Frankie "The Bat" Niagara - whereas two years later he makes no jokes and is hardly ever seen with a hint of humor.

Max Payne pursues his enemies with deep perseverance, some even say fanatically.^[4] No matter how injured he might be or how many laws he might be breaking, when he sets his sights on his target, he refuses to let go of them. If it means killing all the enemies that happen to block his way, jumping on top of a moving train, avoiding destructive explosive charges, whatever it might be that impedes serving his revenge Payne is not hesitant to overcome.

Notes

Max Payne's badge number at the NYPD is 8349.^[5]

Behind the scenes

Max Payne is the protagonist of the Max Payne series. However, he is not the only playable character in the video games, as the player can also control Mona Sax in some levels of Max Payne 2.

Bullet Time

Max Payne's Bullet Time has no official in-story explanation, and is referred to in the game manual as possibly being Max entering a higher state of focus, or what athletes call "The Zone." During one of his encounters with Vladimir Lem, however, Max says something that could possibily related to Bullet Time. Being held by Lem at gunpoint, just before being shot in the head, Max says "Einstein was right. Time is relative to the observer. When you're looking down the barrel of a gun, time slows down. Your whole life flashes by, heartbreak and scars. Stay with it, and you can live a lifetime in that split second". That could possibly have implications on how the Bullet Time feature works.

Creation

"...it's just like James Bond or Batman; if you have a solid character, you can make games and movies forever, based on these characters."

―Scott Miller^[6]

The character of Max Payne was at the very center of the development of Max Payne. The main premise of the game was based on creating a well developed, strong protagonist. The creators wanted to provide a clear backstory and a strong motivation to Payne.^[6]

Name

The name "Max Payne" is a play on words, indirectly suggesting "Maximum Pain". Another Remedy game character, Alan Wake, is also a play on words: taking his first initial and his last name reads "Awake", a reference to Wake's fight with the darkness.

Modelling

Maxactor2 — Timothy Gibbs modelled for Payne in *Max Payne 2*

Due to the relatively low budget of the Max Payne game, Remedy had to use their staff in the in-game graphic novel scenes, leading to Max being played by Sam Lake, the head writer of the franchise, who gave him his trademark sneer look. For Max Payne 2, however, as this game had a larger budget, Lake declined the honor, and the actor Timothy Gibbs was assigned to imitate Max Payne, giving Max a more rugged, worn appearance.^[7] James McCaffrey will reportedly act as Payne in motion capture sequences for Max Payne 3.

Voice acting

Max Payne is voiced by James McCaffrey. The actor was initially announced to not be returning to voice Max Payne for Max Payne 3, with Rockstar saying: "We need a voice that can symbolize an older, more mature Max Payne." When asked about a new voice actor, Rockstar said "we are pretty good at casting. Don't expect any major Hollywood names, but maybe minor names." Such decision proved to be highly unpopular amongst the fans of the series, who bemoaned that it was yet another radical move in a string of changes for the third game of the series (after the revelation of the change of the setting location from NYC to Brazil and the dramatic altering of the appearance of the protagonist). However, in May of 2011, Rockstar revealed that McCaffrey in fact will return to Max Payne 3.^[8]

Film portrayal

In the Max Payne movie, Mark Wahlberg portrayed Max Payne.

Statue

A 10 inch statue of Max Payne will be released as a part of the Max Payne 3 special edition.^[9] It features the character in a gray suit holding dual pistols and spent bullet casings lying around him on the floor. The statue depicts a scene from the story of the game.

Max Payne games' TV shows

All the in-game TV shows featured in both Max Payne games are based on the character's life, perhaps except for Max Heat 7.

John Woo

The black suit and tie Max is seen wearing at the beginning of Max Payne could be seen as one of many John Woo film references.

Xbox LIVE avatars

Two sets of Max Payne outfits were released as part of the Max Payne Xbox LIVE avatar items. They are the character's clothes with which he appears in the first and second games.^[10]

Mentions in other works

In the Remedy game Alan Wake, multiple easter eggs referring to Max Payne can be found. One of the easter eggs suggest that Max was killed thirteen years after his revenge on Horne, that he was killed by a woman, and that he died in a city during the winter, likely New York. Two of the notes found by Alan Wake are read by the same voice actor that voices Max Payne in the games (McCaffrey), and might be references to the character. They do not appear to be part of the rest of the notes Alan Wake finds, which are read by another voice actor. For instance, the femme fatale that Max Pane refers to in the series is mentioned in these two notes.
In the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a bulletproof window glass could be found, with the words "Max Pane" written under it.