Latest video: No more Mr Nice Mel

By Ewen Mcdonald

Let's get one thing straight about Mel Gibson before we chat about Payback, his latest movie, out on video this week. If he's an Australian, so are Phar Lap, Split Enz, The Piano and the pavlova.

It says right here on the Internet - and what greater source of fact is there as we approach the millennium? - that the world's most famous male derriere made its debut on "3 January 1956, Peekskill, New York, USA."

When Mel was 12 his dad, Hutton, moved the brood from upstate New York to Sydney after he won the prize pool on the famous Jeopardy game show and feared what the neighbours might think - or do.

So our transtasman cousins might claim him, and the credit for his success, but the teenager took up acting only because his sister submitted an application to drama school behind his, er, back. The night before the audition, Mel got into a fight and his face was badly beaten - an accident that won him his first role.

Mind you, the selection panel that year knew what they were on about: Mel's classmates included Judy Davis (they played opposite one another in Romeo and Juliet) and Colin Friels, and his room-mate was some fellow called Geoffrey Rush.

Enough, already. We're supposed to be talking about Payback, No 33 in the filmography of this fellow who earned $15,000 for the first Mad Max movie and now takes US20 million home to Robyn and the seven kids each time he goes to the office.

The poster says "No More Mr Nice Guy," and it's there to tell you that Mel has decided he needs a bit of street-cred, so he's playing a villain. With a heart.

He's Porter, a robber who's tracking down Val (Gregg Henry), his former partner in crime - robbery, $70,000 from a Chinese gang, to be specific. After the heist Val stole the money, Porter's drug-addict wife and left him to die. The former Mrs Porter departed this life just as Porter was returning to it, trying to get her to clean up her act.

Unfortunately Val has used the money to get matey with the Mob (or "the Outfit," as they're called here), which is going to make things rather difficult for our anti-hero, who just wants his $70,000 back.

From here on in it's cross, very cross and double-cross, involving the Chinese, the Outfit and a bunch of local cops who couldn't give you directions for the straightest way to get anywhere.

Big names alongside the biggest name in movies include Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn and Deborah Unger (The Game, Crash); the director and co-writer is Brian Helgeland, deserved Oscar-winner for his L.A. Confidential screenplay.

Be aware that this is a very brutal movie and if you're thinking about hiring it because the family's enjoyed lots of Mel's work, Payback carries an R18 tag.

* On the verge of finally making it, long-struggling rock musician Jack Frost realises he's missing something important: quality time with his wife and son. Before he can make up for all the hockey games he missed and the plumbing he never fixed, Jack swerves off an icy road into the Great Gig in the Sky.

Thanks to his son's wish, Jack returns to Earth as a walking, talking snowman, determined to be the father he never was.

Yep, this is one you can take home to the family before the footy on Saturday night. Jack Frost stars Michael (Batman) Keaton as the dad who becomes really cool, Kelly (Mrs Travolta) Preston as his wife/widow and Joseph Cross as their son.

* Jon Favreau is becoming a Hollywood heavyweight since his breakthrough with the independent success Swingers, a festival favourite about guys cruising the L A cocktail bars and showing the effects of listening to far too many Dean Martin songs. The young writer, producer and actor improved his reputation, though not too many others did, in the recent Very Bad Things.

He takes the title role in Rocky Marciano, a biopic of the 1952-56 heavyweight boxing champion and all-round nice guy outside the ring. Though a generation of fight fans reared on the antics of Mike Tyson and "Buster" Douglas might have forgotten him, Marciano remains the only champ in any weight division to have gone through his career and retired undefeated - 49 bouts, 49 wins. No draws, Mr King.

Not the greatest boxing pic of all time (Robert De Niro's Raging Bull is the undisputed titleholder) but recommended to sports fans who might want to learn more about a man of whom it was said: "Rocky Marciano stood out like a rose in a garbage dump."