FADE IN:

INT. WODEN MANOR

MONA SAX lies BLEEDING on the FLOOR.

MONA SAX

Aha, so I didn’t die in the first game after all!

(dies)

Whoa, déjà vu. By the way, fooled you, this is the end of the game! FLASHBACK!

INT. HOSPITAL

DETECTIVE MAX PAYNE is being wheeled in on a STRETCHER by THE DRAMATIC SHOUTY MEDIC SQUAD.

MAX PAYNE

I am? Where? I don’t see me.

(beat)

Oh shit, that’s me! Awesome, I don’t look like a ferret being electrocuted anymore!

SHOUTY MEDICS

25CC OF LIDOCAINE! STAT! CLEAR! GAUZE! WE’RE LOSING HIM!

MAX PAYNE

What? Guys, just give me some painkillers and I’ll be fine. Don’t you know anything about medicine?

MAX passes out and wakes up later to PRETENTIOUS GUILT AUDITORY HALLUCINATIONS.

MAX PAYNE

Oh no, angst! Must run away from hospital bed for some reason!

MAX runs randomly around THE HOSPITAL CORRIDORS until he encounters some ARMED GOONS.

MAX PAYNE

Assassins! Say, why did your boss send a couple dozen gun-toting mercenaries in balaclavas to kill one unarmed guy lying bleeding in a hospital bed?

GOON

Hmm, good question. Maybe because you’re MAX FUCKING PAYNE?

MAX PAYNE

(killing every last one of them)

Good point.

He FLEES down to the LOBBY where he finds POLICE CHIEF JIM BRAVURA waiting.

MAX PAYNE

Oh, you're the cop who was chasing me down during the previous game. Are you trying to be effective this time by arresting me at the start of the game rather than the very end?

JIM BRAVURA

No, you're actually back on the force and I'm your chief, because why wouldn't I employ the mass murderer I painstakingly built a case against only for all of it to be thrown out thanks to some influential shadowy figure?

MAX PAYNE

Fair deal. Say, where the hell is everybody? You’re the first non-assassin I've seen in this whole hospital. Shouldn’t there be like doctors and patients and stuff? Seriously, this is some 28 Days Later shit right here.

JIM BRAVURA

Can it, Payne! I’m taking you down because you killed Detective Winterson! Loose cannon Internal Affairs breathing down neck give badge gun!

BRAVURA is then SHOT REPEATEDLY by ANOTHER GOON.

MAX PAYNE

Well fuck. By the way, double fooled you, this is like two-thirds of the way through the game! FLASHBACK AGAIN!

INT. WODEN MANOR

MONA SAX

(dead)

Nope, wrong way.

EXT. NEW YORK - ACTUAL NO-FOOLING BEGINNING OF THE STORY

MAX PAYNE is driving his BEAT.

MAX PAYNE

Okay, can we quit fucking around and tell this story in order now? Seriously guys, when people said these games could afford to be more non-linear, that’s not what they were talking about.

DISPATCH

Shots fired in a warehouse there, acknowledge.

MAX PAYNE

A warehouse there? I know that address! That’s Vladimir Lem’s place!

MAX goes to the WAREHOUSE. It turns out to be VLAD’S ILLEGAL GUN WORKSHOP, where some HITMEN disguised as CLEANERS are about to KILL GUNSMITH ANNIE FINN.

ANNIE FINN

Hey, Max Payne is here! Maybe he’ll save me!

CLEANER

Well let’s see, there’s a surefire formula for finding out whether you live to the end of this game. First: does your character have a name?

ANNIE FINN

Uh, yes?

CLEANER

Second: is that name in the title of the game?

ANNIE FINN

Oh.

(shot in the face)

CLEANER

Of course, us nameless characters don’t tend to fare that well either --

(shot everywhere)

MAX mows down the CLEANERS. THREE OF THEM try to ESCAPE when suddenly MONA SAX steps out of the ELEVATOR and SHOOTS THEM.

MAX PAYNE

MONA? So you survived that gunshot to the head from the first game! And weren’t caught by the cops who stormed the building minutes later! Are we ever going to address how the hell you were able to do that?

MONA SAX

Nope.

(leaves)

MAX PAYNE

Wait, did she come here just to kill those three random guys and leave? That was weird.

The REMAINING CLEANERS get away.

INT. VODKA NIGHTCLUB

MAX goes to VLAD'S NIGHTCLUB to make inquiries, only to find that it’s UNDER ATTACK by VINNIE GOGNITTI and his MAFIA HENCHMEN.

VLADIMIR LEM

(on PA system)

Max, they’ve got me pinned down! Good thing I installed my PA microphone behind these random sacks of concrete! Also a landline phone, as it later turns out.

MAX PAYNE

Uh oh, I’d better hurry! He’s not going to last much longer unless I -- ooh, my stories are on!

MAX stops KILLING PEOPLE to watch an episode of ADDRESS UNKNOWN.

EKAL MAS LAERRUS

(on TV)

The face of Noir York City changed as the killer struck again. The flamingo spoke to me from my mirror in the voice of my dead girlfriend. That’s right everybody, we’re making fun of Twin Peaks for being overwrought, self-serious and pretentious! Next up we’ll make fun of kettles for being black!

MAX PAYNE

Ah, it’s so much easier to keep up with television now that episodes last twenty-five seconds. Back to the violence!

Moving into THE NEXT ROOM, MAX comes across RUSSIAN MAFIOSO MIKE THE COWBOY, who BLOWS AWAY SEVERAL MOB GUYS and gets his NAME splashed across a DRAMATIC INTRODUCTORY FREEZE-FRAME.

MIKE THE COWBOY

Welcome, Max Payne! I am Mike the --

(killed)

MAX PAYNE

Huh. I guess this time around it’s not just the bad guys who get built up only to die in under a minute. Chalk one up for equality?

MAX kills his way to where VLAD is pinned down by VINNIE.

VINNIE GOGNITTI

Oh fuck, it’s Payne! You’d think I would’ve seen this coming since Vlad’s been talking about you and to you over the PA system for the past ten minutes, but apparently not! RUN AWAY!

(flees)

MAX PAYNE

Oho, excellent, Vinnie’s back. I look forward to actually getting to kill that insufferable son of a bitch this time!

VINNIE GOGNITTI

(several postal districts away)

Actually, you never get to do that! Although you do have to protect me from BEING killed, for what that’s worth!

MAX PAYNE

FUCK!

VLADIMIR LEM

Thank you Max, dearest of all my --

MAX PAYNE

So you’re the bad guy, right?

VLADIMIR LEM

Uh, what? What makes you say that?

MAX PAYNE

Well, we already know that Mona, Detective Winterson and Police Chief Bravura all wind up dying tragic deaths, and when we eventually bring Alfred Woden into the mix, it’s as somebody the cleaners are trying to kill. That leaves you and Vinnie “shrieks like a little girl and acts like one too” Gognitti.

VLADIMIR LEM

Maybe Vinnie’s entire personality is a very, very long con? Or something?

MAX PAYNE

Uh huh. Look, don’t worry, you’ve got about another act and a half before the plot will let me put two and two together. Until then, you can be as slickly elusive as you want.

VLADIMIR LEM

Thanks, Max, you’re a pal. Let's have a drink!

(smirks insufferably)

INT. MAX’S APARTMENT

MAX is having a NIGHTMARE.

MAX PAYNE

Oh God, not again! I swear, if I can die in my dreams again --

(shot over and over by police)

NO NO NO NO NO!

(wakes up)

Oh thank fuck.

There’s a KNOCK ON THE DOOR. MAX answers it to find MONA standing there POINTING A GUN AT HIM.

MONA SAX

Max. Don’t worry, I’m not here to kill you.

MAX PAYNE

Then maybe shoving a pistol in my face was a bit of an ill-considered opening gambit, don’t you think?

MONA SAX

Maybe. I’m here to tell you you’re in danger. The cleaners have been watching you for weeks.

MAX PAYNE

Why? And how do you know this?

MONA SAX

NO TIME TO ANSWER CLEANERS JUST ARRIVED GOTTA GO!

(runs away)

MAX PAYNE

Are you seriously making a run for it and leaving me to handle an army of assassins by myself? Come on, the only other people around to help me are a couple of old ladies, a skeezy hooker and a drunken hobo!

SKEEZY HOOKER

Fortunately I just so happen to be carrying a huge pistol for just such an occasion. God only knows where I was keeping it in this skimpy outfit.

(starts murdering cleaners)

DRUNKEN HOBO

And I may be falling-down drunk, but that's no impediment to my marksman skills!

(caps bad guys from twenty feet away)

LITTLE OLD LADY

Would you like to borrow one of my shotguns, dearie?

MAX PAYNE

WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF BUILDING DO I LIVE IN?

MAX gets away from the CLEANERS and tracks MONA down to HER HIDEOUT.

INT. THEME PARK

MAX approaches the THEME PARK.

MAX PAYNE

An Address Unknown theme park? I guess this is a reference to the Twin Peaks theme park they used to have in the middle of New York City.

(beat)

Oh wait, no such thing ever existed. Or ever would have existed. This is just a fucking dumb premise.

He WINDS HIS WAY through an elaborate HAUNTED MANSION-STYLE ATTRACTION, which is still apparently OPERATIONAL AND RUNNING 24/7 despite not having been MAINTAINED IN A DECADE and presumably nobody paying THE ELECTRICAL BILLS. Eventually he finds MONA’S APARTMENT, where she’s taking a SHOWER.

MAX PAYNE

You keep your hair in a pony tail while you wash it?

MONA SAX

Well they weren’t going to model a whole new haircut for this one sequence now, were they?

MAX PAYNE

But they did model your naked body. Aaaand it's already been turned into a player model by the Internet.

MONA SAX

That figures. Now, I have information about the cleaners. They’ve been killing people on behalf of the Inner Circle.

MAX PAYNE

The omnipotent secret society from the first game? The omnipotent secret society whose members ALL DIED in the first game?

MONA SAX

That’s the one. I can show you more, but we need to head to the home of Corcoran for that. He's a member of the Inner Circle. Y'know, one who didn't die as much as the others.

MAX PAYNE

Okay. And on the way I'm going to ask you how exactly you’re involved in all of this, by which I mean I won't at all ever do that.

INT. CORCORAN’S APARTMENT

When MAX and MONA arrive, the CLEANERS have already KILLED CORCORAN.

MAX PAYNE

Wait a minute. You said the cleaners were committing murders FOR the Inner Circle. Now they’re committing murders ON the Inner Circle?

MONA SAX

It’s actually both, but even though it only takes two seconds to say “infighting," I think I’ll just not explain and let everyone be confused for a while.

A HORDE OF CLEANERS emerge from an ELEVATOR. They are being led by KAUFMAN.

KAUFMAN

Find him. Take care of him.

(beat)

That’s it, six words. Dozens of random goons with generic character models get entire monologues you can eavesdrop on, but me, the captain, the level boss who's been built up as a formidable adversary? I get one line ever. My only defining feature is that I wear a hat. Seriously, what is the point of me even existing?

MAX kills him and heads DOWNSTAIRS, where he and MONA are arrested by DETECTIVE VALERIE WINTERSON and hauled off to the POLICE STATION.

INT. POLICE STATION

MAX is being GRILLED by WINTERSON.

VALERIE WINTERSON

Clearly this is all Sax’s work.

MAX PAYNE

You’re trying to pin all the dead tenants on the woman who was downstairs and unarmed at a computer when you showed up?

VALERIE WINTERSON

Well uh, maybe I’m claiming you’re involved too! Although we never even try to arrest you so I guess not? Look, I honestly don’t know what bullshit version of events I’m trying to sell here, but rest assured that the dozens of armed uniformed assassins found at the scene are completely irrelevant and not worth investigating whatsoever!

MAX PAYNE

You’re in dire need of some corruption lessons, lady.

Suddenly there is an EXPLOSION in the HOLDING CELLS. CLEANERS burst in coming after MONA, but she ESCAPES.

MAX PAYNE

Oh no! I, the guy that both the cops and the cleaners know to be Mona’s accomplice, should go straight to her top secret hideout right away!

VLADIMIR suddenly DRIVES up in his LIMO with SUPER-SUSPICIOUS TIMING.

VLADIMIR LEM

Hey, can I give you a lift to wherever you’re going?

MAX PAYNE

EVEN BETTER!

INT. THEME PARK

MAX meets with MONA at the entrance to the THEME PARK.

MAX PAYNE

Okay, do you really go through the entire attraction to enter your hideout every time? You know the back door opens right out onto an alley, don’t you?

Suddenly, SURPRISE SURPRISE, some CLEANERS show up and start SHOOTING! MAX and MONA run inside, but then MAX falls down A CONVENIENTLY COLLAPSING CATWALK.

MAX PAYNE

Falling down that hole felt like my past dragging me down, its edges pulling at my pleats, all darkness and fucking hell I guess I'm still doing the brooding metaphors.

MAX winds up LURKING BEHIND THE BACKDROPS.

MAX PAYNE

Ooh, from here I can work the props and pull off some neat environment kills, providing some much-needed variety to gameplay! Or rather, pull off one single environment kill and spend the rest of the time shooting dudes like usual. What a tease.

The last of the CLEANERS flake out and drive off, but MAX manages to JUMP INTO THE BACK of one of their VANS.

MONA SAX

(on radio)

Max! Lucky we still have those walkie-talkies we were using back at Corcoran’s apartment building. Even though that means I was allowed to keep mine in my jail cell.

MAX PAYNE

Even luckier that you sprung for walkie-talkies that apparently have a range of several miles! Anyway, come meet me, we just arrived at Castling Insurance Company’s construction site, which I was able to identify from inside the back of a completely windowless van somehow.

INT. CONSTRUCTION SITE

MAX heads inside to find DISCARDED CLEANER COSTUMES lying around.

MAX PAYNE

Aha, they’re ditching the disguises! Thank god, I was getting tired of fighting an endless stream of identical uniformed guys, indistinguishable except for their faces --

He runs into the CLEANERS, who are now all dressed in generic black CRIME CLOTHES, including BALACLAVAS concealing their FACES.

MAX PAYNE

Well darn.

He keeps SHOOTING GUYS. They fall off of LEDGES and land on PLANKS causing TOOLS resting on the PLANKS to go FLYING and knock over BARRELS which roll into BOXES and TIP THEM OVER and send CANS AND AMMO TUMBLING EVERYWHERE because HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS HAVE YOU SEEN THIS HAVOK PHYSICS ENGINE IT’S SO AWESOME AND RAGDOLLY WHEEEE!

MAX PAYNE

Here we go, evidence! Here’s a room with about two tonnes of guns and ammo! And here’s a room full of bagged corpses! On like the sixth floor of a building with no elevators. Yowch, those poor cleaners. But on the upside, if we call the cops in now there’s no way they can get rid of all the evidence before --

The CLEANERS blow up THE BUILDING. ACCIDENTALLY.

MAX PAYNE

(falling out the window)

Ah. The universe must have sensed something going my way for once.

(crushed by falling lumber)

Damnit! Mona, I’m stuck, help!

MONA SAX

(on radio)

Okay. Hey, what if the player plays as me for a while?

MAX PAYNE

Fine, but make it quick, this construction site setting is already getting really fucking samey --

MONA SAX

(on radio)

What’s that? You’re breaking up, did you say go back to the beginning of the construction site sequence and play the whole thing over again from my perspective?

MAX PAYNE

Goddamnit, no! Oh well, at least playing as you will provide the variety in gameplay that the second theme park sequence made us desperate for.

MONA SAX

(on radio)

Sorry? My play style should essentially be you in drag with occasional sniping and backflips? Well if you say so.

MAX PAYNE

Come on, you're making me reconsider this entire --

MONA SAX

(on radio)

Say again, Max? Now that you're an NPC, you've suddenly become incapable of dealing with any kind of opposition without my help?

MAX PAYNE

JESUS FUCK GO ALREADY!

We GO BACK IN TIME and see the past twenty minutes from MONA’S POINT OF VIEW, providing us with literally ZERO ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR INSIGHT into the narrative. Eventually she and MAX clear out the rest of the CLEANERS, at which point WINTERSON appears and tries to arrest MONA.

MONA SAX

Max, she’s one of them! She’s here to kill me!

VALERIE WINTERSON

Don’t be stupid. I literally emerged out of the shadows. If I was out to kill and frame you guys I could have capped you both before you even knew I was here.

(beat)

Wait a minute, I AM here to kill and frame you, so I should have done that very thing! Urgh, use your head, Winterson!

But before WINTERSON can kill MONA, MAX shoots WINTERSON!

MAX PAYNE

Dear God, what have I done? And what’s worse, everyone will know it’s me who shot her, even though there were no witnesses and the many armed corpses littering the building provide a fuckton more likely suspects and --

WINTERSON shoots MAX out of pure SPITE!

MAX PAYNE

Aaarnh, the hundred and fifty-seventh time I’ve been shot today!

(hauled off in an ambulance)

INT. HOSPITAL - TWO HOURS OF GAMEPLAY AGO

The story politely SKIPS PAST all the stuff we already saw, finding MAX trapped by CLEANERS in THE HOSPITAL MORGUE.

CLEANER

Ha, there’s no way out of there! So I’ll just wait here with my gun pointed at the door. And my face practically pressed up against it, a plan which cannot possibly --

MAX charges THE DOOR and knocks the CLEANER ON HIS ASS, then resumes his KILLING SPREE and escapes THE HOSPITAL.

INT. WODEN MANOR - NO, MONA’S NOT DEAD YET, EARLIER THAN THAT

MAX pays a visit to ALFRED WODEN, LEADER OF THE INNER CIRCLE.

MAX PAYNE

I want the truth about the cleaners and the Inner Circle. Remember, you still owe me!

ALFRED WODEN

Owe you? After I gave you Nicole Horne’s name and the schematics to her building and a whole bunch of weapons and then made sure you didn’t go to jail after you killed her and all those other hundreds of people?

MAX PAYNE

Okay, I don’t know where I was coming from with that. But still give me information pretty please.

ALFRED WODEN

Fine. There’s a civil war in the Inner Circle. The cleaners work for a rogue faction led by Vladimir Lem.

MAX PAYNE

Vlad? Man, when you can’t trust a murderous Russian mafioso, who can you trust?

(beat)

Wait a minute, exactly how did Vlad become a member of the Inner Circle? You’re a top secret, ultra-selective society of billionaires, politicians and industrialists! Since when do you recruit medium-profile gun-running gangsters-slash-nightclub owners?

ALFRED WODEN

Just to remind you, all of us DIED in the last game. We surrendered our right to follow any kind of logic a long while back.

INT. VODKA NIGHTCLUB

MAX heads back to VODKA to go after VLAD.

MAX PAYNE

Look at all this evidence! The place is filled with weapons and cleaner uniforms! Boy, if any of this stuff was here when I unexpectedly dropped in literally last night, this whole case would have been wrapped up a heck of a lot more quickly.

He comes across YET ANOTHER TELEVISION that’s sitting TURNED ON BY ITSELF IN A DESERTED ROOM, which is apparently a thing that happens EVERY TEN FEET OF AMERICA.

LADY THRIPWORTH-SMYTHINGTON

(on TV)

My lord, this appears to be a show with all the superficial trappings of a classy Regency drama yet also the plotting of a trashy daytime soap.

LORD SAM LAKEFORTHBURY

(on TV)

Indeed my lady, whoever could have suspected that Max Payne 2 would manage to accurately predict the coming of Downton Abbey?

MAX PAYNE

Hey, that guy’s naggingly familiar.

LORD SAM LAKEFORTHBURY

(on TV)

YOU CANNOT STOP ME FROM SHOWING MY FACE IN MY GAMES! NEVURRRR!

After killing EVERYBODY, MAX discovers that WHOOPS VLAD’S NOT HERE SORRY EVERYBODY THIS WAS ALL A HUGE MISUNDERSTANDING.

MAX PAYNE

Oh well, at least I found some evidence that finally let the player off the hook and admitted that Winterson was in bed with Vlad. Like, literally.

EXT. MAFIATOWN

MAX heads into VINNIE GOGNITTI’S TERRITORY, which is currently in the middle of a FULL-BLOWN MAFIA-ON-CLEANER MOB BATTLE.

MAX PAYNE

All right, Woden said Vlad would be coming after Vinnie, so if I go to Vinnie maybe I’ll find Vlad!

MAFIOSO

Does the fact that Vlad has sent a small army of his men into Vinnie’s territory to kill everybody make you think maybe his plans don’t involve personally walking up to Vinnie and shooting him?

MAX PAYNE

No, should it?

MAX goes into BULLET TIME and blasts some GANGSTERS with his SAWN-OFF SHOTGUN before RELOADING.

MAFIOSO

Wha -- did you just do a fucking pirouette?

MAX PAYNE

So? That’s the bullet time way of reloading your weapon. Hey. STOP LAUGHING.

Eventually, MAX makes his way to VINNIE, who has finally revealed his TRUE FORM and become an ANNOYING CARTOON CHARACTER.

VINNIE GOGNITTI

No, I’m just wearing a novelty costume. You gotta help me, Payne! Now that Vlad’s been revealed as the bad guy, he’s slipped into full-blown Bond villain mode and has tricked me into putting on this suit! It’s got explosives in the head and they're set to go off at the slightest disturbance!

MAX PAYNE

So the suit has made you really slow. And really vulnerable. And unable to defend yourself. Good God, it’s the escort mission trifecta.

(guzzles gin)

All right, let’s get moving. If I know my escort missions, we’ll be hit with a wave of a hundred billion enemies in about ten seconds.

Sure enough, as soon as VINNIE starts to WADDLE EXTREMELY SLOWLY out of the building, CLEANERS show up and start trying to set off the BOMB in VINNIE’S HEAD with their BULLETS.

MAX PAYNE

You know, if the plan for killing Vinnie is for fifty guys to shoot machine guns at his head, maybe the explosives aren’t entirely necessary.

They finally GET AWAY, then go to meet MONA at the THEME PARK because ISN’T THAT SUCH A COOL LOCATION WE TOTALLY GOTTA BRING IT BACK AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.

INT. THEME PARK

MAX and VINNIE arrive only to find that VLAD is waiting for them with a DETONATOR for the BOMB.

VLADIMIR LEM

Hah! My guys said I was stupid. “Boss”, they said, “Now that Mona’s hideout has been compromised, there’s no way she or Payne would ever be dumb enough to go back there." But I showed them!

He SHOOTS MAX IN THE HEAD and then BLOWS UP THE BUILDING.

MAX PAYNE

Ouch! Why, that’s enough to cause me like five minutes of unconsciousness. Keeping in mind that I was in critical condition in hospital around two hours ago, I’m getting pretty sure that I’m secretly a demigod.

MONA rescues him and they head to WODEN MANOR.

INT. WODEN MANOR - NEARLY THERE, HOLD YOUR HORSES

MAX and MONA go in to find that CLEANERS have taken over the MANOR. They kill their way to WODEN’S PANIC ROOM, but then MONA pulls a gun on MAX!

MONA SAX

Drop your weapons, Max.

MAX PAYNE

Alright, but that's gonna take a good while.

MONA SAX

You see Max, I’ve been Woden’s personal hitwoman this whole time!

MAX PAYNE

This whole time? Like, including last year, when you were clearly shown working for Nicole Horne, Woden’s most hated enemy? Are we going to reconcile this little discrepancy?

MONA SAX

Pfft, you think we have respect for continuity around here? Check this out, Woden was the one who sent your wife the secret documents that got her killed, and now I’m supposed to kill you so you don’t go getting revenge on him!

MAX PAYNE

Wow. That’s some pretty major stuff to pull out of our asses right at the last minute.

MONA SAX

But -- I can’t do it! I can’t kill you, not with all our history together! I’ve fallen for you, Max!

MAX PAYNE

Seriously? What history? Before we briefly hooked up exactly once yesterday, we’d had a total of two shallow conversations. At the end of one of them you drugged me and left me to get beaten to death with a baseball bat!

MONA SAX

But remember that as tough as I seem to be, I am a female character after all, and therefore it takes remarkably little for me to completely let my feelings for some guy rule my decisions.

MAX PAYNE

Geez, that was Winterson’s deal too. Not exactly a shining example of feminism, are we?

MONA SAX

It could be worse. We could gone the dead-woman-as-motivator path that the first game --

VLAD appears and SHOOTS MONA.

MONA SAX

Never mind.

(dies, again)

VLADIMIR LEM

All right, one down, one to go. Now I just have to shoot Max.

(beat)

Who is right there.

(beat)

Yes, just shoot him with this gun that I have here in my hand.

ALFRED WODEN

Enough, Vlad! I’ve come out of the safety of my impenetrable panic room to have at you with my bony old man arms!

(killed)

Well that wasn’t very well thought through.

VLADIMIR LEM

Now to get out of here! And of all possible directions to flee, what better one than to get myself stuck on top of some weird dangling ceiling ornament trying to kill Max by blindly tossing Molotov cocktails?

MAX PAYNE

All right, clever climactic set piece time!

MAX shoots out the PINS holding up the CEILING THING and it FALLS! About FOUR FEET!

MAX PAYNE

Okay, that didn’t work, but there’s still a secondary, suggestively pointy part of the structure up there!

MAX shoots out the PINS holding up the SECONDARY PART OF THE CEILING THING, and it FALLS RIGHT TOWARDS VLAD! Who simply GETS OUT OF ITS WAY!

MAX PAYNE

FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

MAX shoots VLAD with his GUN, and that’s how he defeats THE MAIN BOSS OF THE GAME.

MAX PAYNE

Okay, so I didn’t do the slightest bit of good stopping Vlad’s crimes. Except for me, every single person he wanted dead is dead, and several more on top of that. But you know what? I’ve gotten a strange sort of closure anyway. Mona’s death has helped me to accept that bad things like this happen and I can’t let it destroy me. I just have to learn from it and --

MONA SAX

(back alive)

Wait wait, it turns out you were playing on the toughest difficulty mode so I lived after all!

MAX PAYNE

Oh. So, my closing line about how my wife is dead but it’s all right has changed meaning from “I’ve accepted it” to “I have a new woman now so who gives a fuck?" Great. How the hell are we going to deal with this dual-reality shit when the sequel comes around?

MONA SAX

I guess we could delay the sequel for nearly a decade, setting it so much later and so far away that the events of this game score only a single vague, one-line reference.

MAX PAYNE

Let’s call that Plan Z.

THE END