Major Payne

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Major Payne

cinematic poster
Directed by Nick Castle
Produced by Harry Tatelman
Damon Wayans
Written by Joe Connelly
Bob Mosher
Starring Damon Wayans
Karyn Parsons
William Hickey
Michael Ironside
Albert Hall
Orlando Brown
Music by Craig Safan
Cinematography Richard Bowen
Editing by Patrick Kennedy
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) March 24, 1995
Running time 95 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Major Payne was a 1995 film, starring Damon Wayans. The film was a loose remake of the 1955 film The Private War of Major Benson, starring Charlton Heston.

While generally receiving unfavourable reviews, the movie has become a cult favorite, especially with ROTC programs.

Contents

[edit] Taglines

  • Welcome to the House of Payne.
  • He's looking for a few good men. He'll settle for a few guys old enough to shave.
  • " Killin is my business ladies, and business is good!"
  • "One, tubby tubby, two, tubby tubby...."
  • "What's yo angle Boy?!"
  • "You plottin' on me boy?!"

[edit] Plot

The film stars Major Payne (Damon Wayans), a hardened killing machine, in a drug raid in South America. Payne successfully infiltrates their base of operations, and neutralizes their project. After the mission, he is called into the general's office, and finds out that he was not promoted to a Lieutenant Colonel. "You get two chances to advance, then we gotta show you the hatch". Payne received an honorable discharge on the grounds of "wars of the world are no longer fought on the battlefield", and that his military skill was no longer needed.

After he leaves the military, Payne finds life as a civilian unbearable, and reaches his breaking point, in a scene parodying the opening scene in Apocalypse Now. To help adjust, Payne applies for a job as a Police officer. During the test to see how applicants handled domestic violence disputes, Payne overreacts and repeatedly slaps the man who hit his wife in the scenario, eventually knocking him out. Payne is put into jail on charges that are most likely assault. His former general visits him and informs Payne that he has secured a job for him that will get him back in the military.

Payne arrives at Madison Preparatory School in Virginia. He first meets Tiger (Orlando Brown), who bumps into him when he was running away from school counselor/nurse Emily Walburn (Karyn Parsons), who was trying to give him a shot. The principal informs him that his job is to train the green boys, a disorderly group of delinquents and outcasts, who have placed last in the Virginia Military Games eight years running. When Payne sees his company, he immediately tells them that under his direction they will win the games at all costs. He makes the cadets do pushups, situps, and squat thrusts for their disobedience, and later shaves their heads and makes them do their morning jog around the campus in sundress (as punishment for when the boys attempted to have him fired).

Much of the comedy comes from Payne's harsh and sometimes sadistic punishment of the boys, the boys' numerous attempts to get rid of him, and the reluctant bonds he forms with each of the boys as they work toward winning the games. Payne consistently tries to see the boys merely as units in his troop but slowly comes to be a father figure for the boys -- in particularly six-year-old Tiger -- and grows to love Emily, the mother of the troop, who is his polar opposite in their views on childcare. Payne is eventually asked to come back to the Marines to fight in Bosnia, and his conflicting feelings about his old life and new life are the catalyst for the film's finale.

At the train station, Payne realizes he has formed an undeniable bond with the unit, and decides to return home, not setting foot on the train. The team wins the games for the first time, and former delinquint Alex Stone is awarded a trophy for the most improved ROTC soldier. From there, the unit is tighter than ever. The last scene shows Payne on the first day of the new school year, albeit much more soft-spoken then before, and when a new wise-cracking, though blind, cadet shows up, Payne proceeds to shave him (and his dog) bald with his field knife. He is shown laughing into the credits.

When Major Payne and Emily are at a dance club, he wows everyone on the dance floor by doing the robot dance. When Damon Wayans was on In Living Color, in a sketch he played Louis Farrakhan who was not afraid of movie monsters by telling Frankenstein "You have to get with it; the robot went out ten years ago!"


[edit] Cast

[edit] External links