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| “ | Nothin' wrong with a little laugh now and then. Take me for example. I love to watch cartoons. Cartoon violence's a fascinatin' thing. Let's take a break. I need to take a leak and maybe grab a cold one at the bar. Don't worry, I'll be back to finish you off... An' then it's checkout time. | „ |
| ~ Frankie Niagara after smacking Max with a baseball bat. |
| “ | Fine by me. This works out just as well. | „ |
| ~ Frankie Niagara right before the fight commences. |
Frankie "The Bat" Niagara is a minor antagonist from the 2001 third-person shooter game Max Payne. A vicious hitman who is either a part of the Punchinello family or was hired by them, he's tasked by the Don himself to eliminate Max Payne in retaliation for all the trouble he's caused them.
He was voiced by Bruce Kronenberg, who has also voiced Vince Mugnaio, one of the chemists, a member of the mobsters and several policemen.
He was portrayed by an unknown actor in the graphic novel.
Biography[]
Once Jack Lupino finally goes down, Max Payne, who's still flabbergasted at the maniac's durability, keeps firing at his corpse, when he's suddenly interrupted by a snarky remark of a mysterious armed woman, boldly claiming that he's "got the wrong guy". They keep each other at gunpoint and the hero mistakenly identifies her as Lisa Punchinello, the Don's wife. She corrects him, introducing herself as Mona Sax, "Lisa's evil twin", and reveals that the one who framed Max for Alex Balder's murder and put a hit on him was none other than Angelo Punchinello himself and states that she has a personal vendetta against the Don for his mistreatment of Lisa. Mona offers Max to unite their efforts against the slimebag and the hero, enamoured by her feminine wiles, lets his guard down, so when she also offers him to share a conveniently placed bottle of Whiskey with her, Max accepts it without hesitation. Unbeknownst to him, Mona has spiked the drink to either poison or incapacitate him, fearing that the vengeful rogue might go berserk and accidentally harm Lisa.
Thus, the protagonist spaces out and is involuntarily thrust into a fever dream that he's all too familiar with, a recurring nightmare begotten through a combination of his guilt-ridden conscience and trauma, where the distorted, labyrinthine halls of Max's former apartment are permeated with the screams of his long-gone family and painful reminders of his irreversible errors, and yet, despite the iron grasp of his mental prison, the mocking words of someone from the other side seep through the hallucination and gradually invade it, pulling him back to the real world.
Tied to a chair in the stuffy boiler room of Lupino's hotel, the hero has the misfortune to get acquainted with a notoriously brutal Punchinello family enforcer, Frankie "The Bat" Niagara, holding his signature tool with a predatory grin. The bold Max casually makes fun of Frankie's name and the mobster is swift to justify his moniker, savagely beating him over the head with his weapon. With his bloodlust satiated for now, Niagara swaggers out to relieve himself and have a refreshing drink, leaving the protagonist alone in the room, bruised, sore and determined to get back at the cocky sadist. He breaks free of his confines while assessing the circumstances of his failure to recognize the true goal of his mission, Don Punchinello, and figures that he's no match for Frankie's goons without proper equipment. Having no other choice, Max grabs his tormentor's bat that's been propped up against the stairs and proceeds to carefully pick off the patrolling gangsters one by one, until he comes across the ammunition room, which allows him to confidently gun down the rest of them. As if Max's initial encounter with Frankie hasn't already fleshed out his character inside the protagonist's head, in the same area he spots a sewer passage with a stunning pile of battered corpses stacked inside and the killer's calling card, a "Captain Baseball Bat-Boy" strip, lying beside it. The hero takes an elevator up, emerges out of the meat storage and makes his way to the hotel's entrance, noting the heavy police presence in the area, evident by the cordons and the dead men in blue.
Max removes the yellow tape adorning the entrance and prepares to add a few more chalk outlines to the hotel's floor, when he overhears one of the gangsters loudly talking to someone on the phone behind the door to the lounge. By eavesdropping, he learns that Mona was captured in the process of trying to assassinate Angelo Punchinello and then subsequently handed over to the Don's Trio to be subjected to the unimaginable cruelty. The hero bursts in with guns blazing and, after capping every crook in the lounge area, shifts his attention to the portable radio resting on a coffee table nearby. The news anchor recounts the events of the Ragna Rock shooting, unhesitatingly claiming that, according to the "reliable sources", among all the known criminals whose bodies were already identified, the titular fugitive's corpse is yet to be recovered. The astute protagonist easily sees through this ploy, recognizing these "credible" sources as someone connected to the mob misleading the police into leaving their affairs alone so that they are able to deal with Max without their interference. Further indicating this, next to the radio is the letter written by the Don addressed to Frankie, containing the detailed instructions on providing a long and humiliating death for the protagonist. As expected, Max catches Frankie in the middle of having a beer at the same bar where Rico Muerte and his mistress' lives were cut short. Though initially dumbfounded by the hero's daring escape, Niagara quickly snaps out of his bewilderment and agrees to finish their quarrel once and for all, while his accompanying goons come to his aid. Predictably, their superior firepower and numerical advantage are no match for Payne's sheer resolve, thus concluding Frankie's grisly career.
Appearance[]
Frankie is a Caucasian male in his late thirties-early forties with short hazel-brown hair, a plethora of bolding patches, rotund cheeks and a slight stubble. He usually wears dark-grey pants held by a black leather belt, black shoes, a grey tie with black rectangular shapes and a jacket over a white shirt, though he's often seen without his jacket on. He occasionally carries a baseball bat with a significant portion of it being either dyed red or covered in a thick layer of dried blood and wields dual Ingrams in a ranged combat.
Personality[]
| “ | We should've known when we found you snoring next to Lupino's corpse. A comedian, huh?.. I love to watch cartoons. Captain Baseball Bat was my favorite... Shoot 'em full of holes, blow 'em to bits, vaporize 'em, disintegrate 'em, no matter whatchu do, they'll still be back, good as new... Nothin' like that ever happens in the real world. | „ |
| ~ Frankie's monologue that fades in and out during Max's fever dream. |
At the first glance, Frankie doesn't seem different from his fellow high-ranking Punchinello family thugs, being a psychopathic, remorseless criminal with a dreadful reputation among his peers and a proven reliability and aptitude towards accomplishing daunting objectives requiring special dedication. What sets him apart from the others are his perplexing fixation on the cartoon violence, "Captain Baseball Bat-Boy" in particular, a unique approach to causing pain related to his aforementioned obsession and his distinct proneness to bringing excessive amounts of suffering to his targets for the sake of his amusement, though his acts still pale in comparison to the Trio's track record in terms of length and animosity.
Derisive, facetious and talkative while "playing" with his captives, the most prevalent topic of his one-sided conversations is the children TV and newspaper comic series "The Adventures of Captain Baseball Bat-Boy", a deceptively whimsical and slapstick cartoon that includes an inappropriate amount of bloodshed for its young audience. According to his own words, the show is especially mesmerizing to him due to the unrealistic and over-the-top violence, as no matter what happens to the main characters, they always come back to life, "good as new," which most likely indicates his remarkably sadistic nature, since the idea of inflicting fatal injuries on someone for them to be revived to perpetually relive this process seems captivating to him. The show becomes such a defining aspect of Frankie's personality that he always employs a baseball bat during his torture sessions and often performs a little "ritual" following the death of his victims by leaving a newspaper open on the "Baseball Bat-Boy" comic strip next to their deceased bodies, making him akin to a serial killer rather than an assassin or a mobster, as he's developed his own unique M.O.. Moreover, if Vinnie Gognitti's claims during the Max Payne 2 escort mission are anything to go by, Frankie is just as obsessed with "Captain Baseball Bat-Boy" as he is, possessing an impressive collection of the show's memorabilia. It's never specified if he adopted his preferred method of torture from his favorite cartoon or if it's the other way around, namely if he found the show alluring due to being interested in baseball-related activities to begin with.
Frankie is eerily nonchalant and relaxed while going about his "hobby", radiating fake affability right before proceeding with the torture, perhaps to lull his victims into a false sense of security. He's fond of savoring the process, dealing non-lethal wounds and taking breaks to prolong the fun and unwind a bit. This attitude further manifests itself in his cockiness and recklessness, since he's willing to leave his prisoners unsupervised in the same room as his signature weapon, which eventually leads to his downfall, although he's still strict and territorial when it comes to his subordinates, prohibiting them from entering the boiler room, to which they refer as his "turf", without his permission. Despite Frankie's laid-back demeanor and eternally deadpan, impassive facial expression that doesn't flinch even during a gunfight, he did seem to take offense to Max's comment about his name and loose his cool for a few seconds. Another brief moment of vulnerability arises when he realizes that Max has escaped the confinement, appearing shocked for a short while before promptly regaining his composure and calmly voicing his eagerness to battle the hero, seeming to enjoy the fair, old-fashioned confrontations just (or almost) as much as torturing someone defenseless.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Bat proficiency: Though he's never seen using it outside of the torture sessions, it's pretty safe to assume he's skilled enough with his bat to strike his victims' most sensitive spots without outright killing them until he desires to do so.
- Dual-wielding: In addition to his decent accuracy, Frankie is apt at handling two Ingrams at the same time with deadly precision.
Gallery[]
External Link[]
- Frankie Niagara - Max Payne Wiki
[]
 Villains
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Max Payne Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne Max Payne 3 Max Payne (film) See Also | ||