10 Film Director's Cuts That Actually Made The Movie Shorter

Shorter by: 11 minutes

LA Confidential writer Brian Helgeland's directorial debut was a remake of stark Lee Marvin noir thriller Point Blank. Point Blank's director, John Boorman, was also helming his first feature but fortunately Marvin ensured that his director had final cut privilege, allowing Boorman to deliver a film as downbeat and bleak as he wanted. Helgeland had no such deal.

Helgeland's initial cut of Payback was described as "too dark" for a mainstream audience and the film was taken out of his hands, rewritten and substantially reshot with production designer John Myhre in the director's chair instead.

Eight years later, Helgeland finally had the chance to put the record straight and release his own version, Payback: Straight Up. Straight Up comes at the director's cut concept by mostly just removing material added in the re-shoots. Helgeland removed scenes designed to soften Mel Gibson's jerk protagonist, a needless kidnapping subplot, and the entirety of Kris Kristofferson's mob boss character (the role instead taken by an unseen woman on the end of a phone). The tighter, nastier director's cut ended up running to a mere 90 minutes, substantially shorter than the original 101 of the theatrically released version.

Payback isn't a very good film and never will be, but Straight Up is still a markedly better, clearer and more focused version than the one audiences first saw.