Max Payne (series)/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Max Payne

The titular protagonist. A former NYPD detective and DEA Agent, his wife and daughter were murdered by junkies three years prior to the events of the first game. This causes him to go undercover hunting for the source of the drug, 'Valkyr'. In the second game, he returns to the NYPD and crosses paths with Mona Sax, an assassin that he falls in love with. Things... don't go well. The third game takes place a decade later, with Max having left the NYPD and New York behind in search of a new life in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Three guesses as to how it goes.

Vlad: "What the fuck is wrong with you, Max? Why don't you just die? You hate life, you're miserable all the time, afraid to enjoy yourself even a little! Face it, you might as well be dead already. Do yourself a favor, give up!"

  • Cowboy Cop
  • Cycle of Revenge: Max can't do much of anything without provoking a blood feud with somebody. He managed to get into a shooting war with yet another New York crime family while sitting on a bar stool minding his own business.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Max's father, Jack, was a severely traumatized Vietnam veteran who would constantly take out his frustrations out on his wife Helen and his son for what he considered weaknesses and lack of respect. It drove the former to the bottle, which eventually killed her, and the latter openly fantasized about killing him.
  • Dating Catwoman: Max keeps threatening to slap cuffs on Mona, and never does.
  • Dead Little Sister: Well, dead wife and daughter.
  • Deadpan Snarker: The very bitter kind of Deadpan.
  • The Determinator: Nothing keeps him down for long. Even when he has nothing left to live for.
  • Drunken Master: The third game implies it pretty strongly. Max is even more of a badass when he's on the sauce than when he's off.
  • The Dulcinea Effect: Don't hit women. It makes Max irritable.
  • Dye or Die: Before venturing into the favela, Max shaves his head as an admittedly feeble disguise.
  • Failure Knight: The poor guy can just never, ever catch a break. It gets worse with every game, too.
  • Forgets to Eat: His diet consists of bad coffee, week-old-donuts, and booze.
  • Guilt Complex: It doesn't help that half his friends betray him in each game, and the other half die messily.
  • Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: Which Max comments on in 3, labeling it "ridiculous."
  • Ink Suit Actor: In the third game Max is not only voiced by James McCaffrey, but his face is also based on him as well.
  • Interface Screw: The camera in Max Payne 3 is constantly flickering and throwing up bright sparks across your field of vision. This is because Max is either really drunk, hung over, or in detox during every single level in the game.
  • Made of Iron: Especially in the second game. Shot in the chest, the head, thrown out of a building: guy just keeps on trucking.
  • Mighty Whitey: Max is characteristically glib about it ("a fat bald white guy with a bad temper"), but he's indeed a hero to the underprivileged of São Paulo. He smashed up the guerrillas who were oppressing them, the policia who were straight-up murdering them (and harvesting their organs), and the politician who was exploiting them.
  • Morality Pet: Ironically, he's Mona's.
  • My Greatest Second Chance: Max views every Damsel in Distress he meets as this, which is tragic since they all die, too.
  • Love Martyr: Possible can be seen as this in the second game after he falls in love with Mona.
  • One-Man Army

Nicole Horne: "What do you mean, 'He's unstoppable'? You are superior to him in every way that counts. You are better trained, better equipped, you outnumber him at least 20 to 1. Do... your... job!"

Max: "YOU'RE TURNING HUMANS INTO GLUE! THAT'S WHAT MY FUCKING PROBLEM IS!"

  • Survivor Guilt: Has this in spades, to the point that his self-blame for what happened to his family makes up the bulk of his nightmare sequences at certain points in the first game.
  • 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: In the second game, mirroring Mona's injury.
  • Tranquil Fury: One of his trademarks.
  • Turn in Your Badge: Without Woden to protect him, Max finally gets the boot in the aftermath of 2.
  • Vigilante Man
  • Walking Disaster Area: Max's boss in 3 is hip to his reputation. "Max, try not to completely destroy the place?!"
  • Walking Wasteland: Summary of each Max Payne game: Everybody dies, except Max Payne. He's quite aware of it; the message "Everyone I touch dies" is scrawled on the monster-ridden cellar of his brain.
  • Weapon of Choice: Max's weapon of choice is the Beretta, of which he usually carries two. In Brazil he transfers to the Brazilian copy, the Taurus PT92.

Mona Sax

An assassin that is revealed to work for the Inner Circle. She's the sister of Lisa Punchinello, and Max's equal in combat. Over the course of the second game, she falls in love with Max.

Vladimir Lem

A charming Russian crime boss that comes to Max's aid in the first game. They quickly become friends which makes his betrayal in the second game even harder to stomach for Max.

Woden: Don't flatter yourself.

Max: "Vladimir was one of those old-time bad guys with honor and morals, which made him almost one of the good guys."

  • Reformed Criminal: Or so he claims at the beginning of 2. His restaurant is only a front for the Cleaners.
  • Renegade Russian
  • Weapon of Choice: Vlad, like Mona, prefers the Desert Eagle as his sidearm, but he's even more well known for using bombs.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: A phone message makes it clear that he viewed Alfred Woden, his mentor in the Inner Circle, as a father figure, and was angry about him not respecting him as a son. So he settles for killing him instead.

NYPD Deputy Chief/Lieutenant Jim Bravura

A by-the-books cop whose seen it all in a long and storied career. Hunts Max throughout the first game while he's undercover and is his immediate superior in the second.

Alfred Woden

A United States Senator with ties to the Inner Circle, a very old and powerful secret society/criminal syndicate.

  • Ancient Conspiracy
  • Bigger Bad: of the first game, see Manipulative Bastard
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Now that Max has become liability in the second game, he sends Mona to kill Max.
  • Dirty Old Man: A regular visitor of the prostitute, Candy Dawn. It comes back to bite him as she videotapes his visits and sells it as blackmail material. Both Nicole Horne and Max gets hold of a copy.
  • Eyepatch of Power
  • Manipulative Bastard: He is the cause of Max's entire crucible in the first game. It is he who sends Valhalla files to Max's wife, knowing that Horne will send psychos to kill Max's wife, which in turn will drive Max to kill Horne.

Vinnie Gognitti

A mid-level, high-strung Mob boss that Max is forced to deal with. He's got the brains to run the business, but he lacks the balls, and often takes out his frustrations on underaged addicts and call-girls. After being left to bleed after a shootout with Max in the first game, he returns in the second game, where he is now the leader of his own gang, and is the process of waging a war against Vald and his men.

  • Butt Monkey
  • The Determinator: Despite getting shot in the stomach by Max, he manages to run across several rooftops, while loosing blood all the way.

Max: "I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings."

Vinnie: "What? I'm a collector! There's nothin' nerdy about it, I'm a collector! Lots of tough guys are into this stuff!"

Nicole Horne

The CEO of Aesir Corp., a rich and influential pharmaceutical corporation. An utterly cold and ruthless woman with an army of mercenaries at her command. A member of the Inner Circle, she is the key figure behind Project Valhalla, the twisted mind behind the nightmare drug Valkyr, and the one behind the murder of Max Payne's family.

Angelo Punchinello

The head of the Punchinello Crime Family.

Jack Lupino

A high-ranking lieutenant in the Punchinella Crime Family with some serious issues.

Frankie "The Bat" Niagara

An assassin hired by the Punchinellos to hunt down and kill Max. Has a love of violent comic strips such as Captain Baseballbat-boy.

Frankie: "Nothin' wrong with a little laugh now and then. Take me for example. I love to watch cartoons. Cartoon violence's a fascinatin' thing."

The Trio (Vince Mugnaio, Pilate "Big Brother" Providence, and Joe "Deadpan" Salem)

The Don's notorious henchmen, a trio of killers hired to deal with Max.

Rico Muerte

A hitman hired by Punchinello to oversee a Valkyr deal going down in Lupino's hotel. He meets his end at Max's hands at the hotel bar soon after servicing Candy Dawn. In Act 2, he's revealed to have been sent by an unknown party (later revealed to be Nicole Horne) on an assassination job on the Mayor himself, but never has the chance to pull it off.

  • Ax Crazy: While not as nuts as Lupino or the Trio, Rico does have his moments, such as strangling two mad dog killers to death with video game cables because he was depressed after watching them settle their differences with a fighting game instead of murdering each other like he'd hoped they would do.
  • Career Killers
  • Dirty Coward: Literally.
  • The Mafia
  • Psycho for Hire

The Finito Brothers (Joey and Virgilio)

The first two mobsters to try to kill Max when his cover is blown at Lupino's hotel.

Alex Balder

Max's best friend and partner in the DEA. Murdered at the start of Max Payne 1 that begins Max's journey.

B.B.

Max's other partner in the DEA, who first sends Max to Roscoe Street Station. He's revealed in the middle of Act 3 to be the one who murdered Alex and set Max up to take the fall.

Mike the Cowboy

Lem's second-in-command that thinks he's in a Western.

Kaufman

An elite member of the Cleaners.

Raul Passos

A friend of Max's from the police academy, or so Max thinks. He offers Max a private security gig in Sao Paulo, which is what prompts Max to leave New York.

  • The Lancer: He's Max's sidekick for a couple of levels, although he always seems to be doing the least dangerous job that he possibly can be.
  • Love Redeems: If Giovanna wasn't pregnant with his kid, he might not have survived. Passos ducks out of the game's plot the moment he finds that out.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When he learns Giovanna is pregnant with his kid, he wisely decides to skip town with her.

Anthony DeMarco

During a drunken dispute in a bar in Hoboken, Max kills Anthony DeMarco's only son. DeMarco promptly sets out to waste Max, sending dozens of armed thugs against him in a berserker rage.

Rodrigo Branco

Max's new boss in Sao Paulo. He is an industrialist who is paranoid about kidnapping attempts. He gets killed by a crooked cop during an attack on his company's headquarters while Max is busy fighting off the invading paramilitary goons.

  • Bodyguard Betrayal: Rodrigo gets shot in the back of the head by the head of the police unit he called to save him.
  • May–December Romance: Fabianna is considerably younger than Rodrigo.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Rodrigo is the oldest of the Branco brothers and Max's direct boss. Even after his wife Fabianna is kidnapped, he's much calmer about it than either of his brothers.

Fabianna Branco

Rodrigo's trophy wife and the subject of the kidnapping attempt in the third game. She's killed during the rescue about midway through.

  • Always Save the Girl
  • May–December Romance: By Max's cynical appraisal, Fabianna mostly married Rodrigo for his money, and the two now mostly ignore one another.
  • Rich Idiot With No Day Job: Fabianna doesn't do a lot, really. She gets kidnapped before she receives any real characterization, but every time she's seen before that point, she's partying on her husband's dime.

Victor Branco

Rodrigo's brother. He is a local politician that wants to clean up the city. In actuality, he is the mastermind behind a human organ trafficking ring, and the Big Bad.

  • Big Bad: The closest thing there is to one in the game.
  • Corrupt Politician: To the point of being a Complete Monster.
  • Make It Look Like an Accident
  • Man Behind the Man: He was, apparently, manipulating everyone to suit his own plans, possibly including all of the different gangs in Sao Paolo and especially his own family.
  • Non-Action Guy: He does nothing but gives orders to Max and Becker. To top it off, Max defeats him in a cutscene by easily breaking his leg instead of the usual gunfight that occurs in the games.
    • The one time he tries to do something by pointing a gun at Max he's easily disarmed and headbutted while delivering a monologue.
  • Tempting Fate: After his final confrontation with Max, he laughs and says he'll walk, so Max breaks his leg.

Marcelo Branco

Rodrigo and Victor's younger brother, he is a party-loving playboy.

Giovanna Taveres

Fabianna's younger sister, Giovanna lives in two worlds. By day, she's a social worker in Sao Paulo's impoverished lower-class neighborhoods, but by night, she parties with her sister in Sao Paulo's night spots.

Wilson De Silva

De Silva is a reasonably honest cop and a family man in Sao Paulo, which requires him to have a certain amount of moral flexibility. He's an unexpected ally to Max after Fabianna's kidnapping.

  • Loophole Abuse: His entire role in the game's plot is essentially to point Max in the right direction, because while de Silva's hands are tied - either by the vast wealth and influence of the person he's after, the corruption of the local police forces, or his target being a large heavily-armed organization of some kind - Max's aren't.

Armando Becker

Becker is the leader of the Unidade de Forças Especiais (UFE), a spectacularly corrupt special police organization in Sao Paulo.

  • An Arm and a Leg: loses an arm after Max shoots a live grenade inches away from him.
  • Dirty Cop
  • The Dragon: He is the right-hand man to Victor.
  • Final Boss: Becker is the half-dead guy who Max is about to execute in his early flashback to the end of the game.

Serrano

Serrano is the leader of Comando Sombra, a powerful São Paulo street gang with ties to South American drug cartels. He and his gang kidnap Fabiana Branco in the hopes of collecting a hefty ransom from her wealthy husband.

  • Asshole Victim: After he murders Fabiana before Max's eyes, Max later encounters him as a prisoner in the Imperial Palace Hotel, having been brutally tortured after getting arrested in the favela raid.
  • Big Bad Wannabe
  • Extreme Melee Revenge: Gives one to Dr. Fischer offscreen after Max uncovers the organ harvesting operation at the derelict hotel.
  • Laser-Guided Karma
  • Scary Black Man
  • Unwitting Pawn: The entire kidnapping operation was secretly set up by Victor Branco, who sent Comando Sombra the information they needed to carry it out as part of his plan to get his other family members killed to gain control of the family fortune.
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