****SPOILERS***** Somewhat confusing casino caper that has so many sub-plots that they almost submerge the movie. After Peter "Mac" MacCallister's, Keith Carradine, parents, who were under police protection from the mob,were killed by a phony postal package that the mob gave little and unsuspecting Mac to deliver his life fell apart.
Holding himself responsible for his parents death Mac never got over it and it cost him his marriage as well as his job as a cop. One evening Mac spotted the person who had his parents killed SF mob boss Rafael Concion, John Saxson. Mac with the help of former cop and friend Benny Cowan, Robert Harper, set up a plan to and rip-off Concion's mob SF headquarters.
Not only getting mob boss Concion's daily cash payoffs Mac also finds a number of video tapes that reveal that Concion is somewhat of a sex freak with him on the tapes being tied-up and beaten by what looks like a six and a half foot tall drag queen. Mac sends a copy of the tapes to Concion's father-in-law and the top Mafioso of the state Don Anzia, Jeff Corey.
The Don shocked at the sight of his son-in-law being a closet degenerate he secretly plans to replace Rafael with his nebbish son Victor, Lawrence Monoson, who from watching him seems to have a number of strange hang up himself like his weirdo pop. The Don put young Victor in charge of the Golden Key Casino replacing his dad Rafael. The Golden Key is the Concion's major money maker as well as the place where the Concion Mob launders their ill gotten gains.
With all this happening Mac gets a job at the casino as a security guard establishing himself as the inside-man of a major robbery, with the help of some of his friends, of the joint.
"Payoff" is an exciting movie with a really good and innovated ending even though that are holes in the plot that you can drive a big Mack Truck through with lots of room to spear. Mac besides his friend Benny gets pretty US Treasury Agent Justine Bates, Kim Greist, who like Mac. Justine is also working undercover in the casino and Hook, Harry Dean Stanton, a former Concion mobster and helicopter pilot. All three work together to pull off the 20 million dollar casino rip-off.
As you would expect in a movie like this there are a number of surprises and double-crosses in the film between the robbers as well as the ones getting robbed. There's a very good ending sequence with two of the casino robbers having a falling out, literally, as they make their helicopter getaway with a high altitude battle as well as a spectacular mid-air explosion.
You have to watch "Payoff" without being too critical of it's plot that has a number of major as well as minor faults. The action is top-notch and the acting especially between father and son Concion is so hilarious and side-splitting that the movie is worth watching just for that alone.
