The Pay Day: Review

19th November 2022

Jennifer (Kyla Frye) is an IT technician and she’s just become unemployed. Mortified about having to find something else in the current economic climate, she has no idea what she’s going to do next. Then one day she gets a mysterious call from a man who claims that he can help her, but she’s going to have to do things she’s never done before.

Thinking it over, Jennifer realises she’s got nothing to lose and goes to meet Mr. Gates (Simon Callow) who tells her that due to her skills she’s perfect for the job he has in mind. All she has to do is to infiltrate an office block and steal some data which is worth millions.

So, Jennifer goes in dressed to impress to get into the office, but when she gets there, she meets George (Sam Benjamin), the CEO of the company and a spark ignites. However, after spending some time together, Jennifer realises that George is not telling the whole story.

The Pay Day is a comedy thriller directed by Sam Bradford and written by Kyla Frye and Sam Benjamin. Taking cues from such films as Out of Sight, The Thomas Crown Affair and Mr & Mrs Smith, the movie all revolves around how cool it can look and how smooth the performances are.

However, this decidedly lower budget production reveals itself to be a showcase for the actors, the screenplay isn’t quite up to scratch either and no amount of smooth jazz can disguise that.

Frye does a good job as a likeable woman out of her depth and Benjamin plays his part well, but they just feel like shades of characters from better movies. The plot does give some genuine surprises, but once the audience realises the kind of movie that they’re trying to make, it becomes all the more predictable.

The Pay Day seems to be a movie designed on a smaller budget than the production could allow, so despite good performances from its leads, it just doesn’t seem to fit together as well as it thinks it should. Callow’s cameo is also another attempt at hiding the cracks in the crime caper, but it brings nothing new and feels very formulaic.

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