“I DON’T believe in heaven. I believe in pain, I believe in fear, I believe in death,” growls the titular, gun-toting hero in voiceover at the beginning of John Moore's tiresome video game-to-movie adaptation.

Audiences will certainly believe in pain - and boredom and frustration - as the vengeance-seeking cop plods wearily through a plot that straddles reality and drug-induced fantasy on the crime-riddled streets of New York City.

First-time screenwriter Beau Thorne sketches a familiar tale of murder and redemption without any of the excitement or relentless, adrenaline-pumping action of the small screen source material.

He opens with the supposed drowning of the main protagonist then flashes back one week to chart events leading up to Max's tumble into the frozen water.

The twists, if they can be called that, are signposted so far in advance it becomes laughable that characters can't see what is staring them in their blank faces.

Mark Wahlberg is inexpressive as the eponymous good cop on a mission, shooting first and thinking later, if at all, as Moore's film builds to a lacklustre final showdown on the rooftop of a skyscraper in the middle of a snowstorm.