I hope Brimley doesn’t mind, but I’ve expanded upon his original list:
Director Brian Helgeland’s original cut was significantly changed by producer/star Mel Gibson before release. The Workprint includes additional scenes, a different ending as well as temp music, and has no end credits.
The opening shot of Porter in the doctor’s office is not in the Workprint. The film begins with Porter on the bridge returning to the city. The Workprint cut doesn’t suggest the double-cross until we see the flashback of Lynn shooting Porter and Val taking the money.
NB: Porter and Lynn fighting in Lynn’s kitchen is exclusive to the Director’s Cut and does not appear in this cut.
Val’s meeting with Stegman at the restaurant has an additional scene outside the restaurant where Val accuses Stegman of giving information to Porter. Val’s hoods hold Stegman while Val threatens him with a curb-stomping.
When Porter meets with Rosie for the first time there is a longer and more harsh exchange. Rosie also provides more information about Val and the Outfit.
In the Workprint, Porter does not merely appear in Resnick’s hotel room in the mob hotel. He sets fire to a garbage truck to distract the hoods out of the hotel lobby, then has a nasty encounter with another hood in the hotel elevator, eventually leaving the hood unconscious with the elevator doors banging open and closed on his head.
Gibson describes this scene in an interview in Premiere Magazine: “I get on an elevator with some guy,” Gibson says with relish, “the guy notices I’m not supposed to be on the elevator and the next time the doors open you see that I’ve ripped the guy’s eye out. Then I see him later as he’s going into some office, and I say, ‘Oh, it’s you again, Cyclops’ and I poke the guy’s other eye out.”
NB: The second part to this scene has not been released in any cut.
Val’s meeting with Mr Carter has additional scenes - Val is frisked by My Carters bodyguard. Val also has dialogue with Phil (John Glover) regarding his file that Phil has pulled for Mr Carter.
Mr Carter shows Val something he is watching through a telescope (possibly another hood in another hotel room, it’s hard to make out what is said in the Workprint)
Carter also makes a reference to the hood that lost an eye to Porter.
NB: Following Val’s meeting with Carter, the Directors Cut has an exclusive scene where Val’s hoods let Val know that they have been re-assigned. Val exclaims that he will ‘do it himself!’.
Val’s phone conversation with Pearl does not include the cut-aways to Pearl, as director Brian Helgeland had not gotten around to filming these scenes (as mentioned in his director’s cut commentary).
When Porter is confronted by the Asian gang there is more dialogue from the gang members and Pearl kisses and then strikes Porter.
When Val breaks in to Rosie’s apartment and beats her up, Porter the dog gets shot and remains dead. In Mel’s cut, the dog lives.
The two versions of the film begin to change greatly when Porter confronts Carter (William Devane) and then Fairfax (James Coburn).
In the Workprint The Kris Kristofferson boss character of Mel’s cut is replaced by a female ‘Outfit’ boss voiced by Angie Dickinson. She’s never seen in the film only heard on the phone. When Porter begins to kill her associates, the boss almost immediately gives in to Porters’ demands. In Mel’s cut, the boss was a bigger character and provided a bigger climax. All the scenes with the boss’s son and Porter’s torture are not in the original Workprint cut of the film.
NB: the female boss character is played by Sally Kellerman in the Director’s Cut of the film.
Porters meeting with Fairfax concludes with Porter demanding his money be delivered to a railway station where the films climax will take place.
Stegman’s death at the hands of the Asian gang included more bullet hits to his back.
The empty gun stand-off between Pearl and Porter ends with Porter getting in a nearby delivery truck and driving off.
NB: The teaser trailer (www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN69_DFySJA) which is comprised of pre-reshoot footage features a shot of Porter sitting with Rosie where she ask’s him if ‘everything is working out’. This is just my speculation, but I would imagine this scene would come after Porter takes the truck and Rosie uses the truck to help capture the hoods in the next scene.
The next scene shows Val’s re-assigned hoods on guard at the Railway station. Rosie turns up in the delivery truck blocking their views and allowing Porter to sneak up on the hoods and capture them both.
Porter and Rosie then handcuff the hoods in the back of the truck. One of the hoods’ insults Rosie and Porter shoots him in cold blood.
Porter then makes his way to the train platform and methodically takes out all the hoods that are waiting for him. Parts of these scenes are slightly different and / or shorter in the Director’s cut.
Once the hoods are all out of the way, Porter is approached by the money courier who’s holding a backpack full of money. During the exchange Porter is shot in the chest by an additional hood that he didn’t suspect was a hood (a young woman in running shoes).
Now wounded, Porter kills the courier and female hood and escapes the train platform with his bag of money.
After taking out an additional hood, Porter collapses on the sidewalk, dying from his wounds.
A homeless man with a cart approaches and asks Porter is he needs the money, Porter lets the homeless man take the money bag.
Rosie then turns up and slaps Porter back to life, before getting him in a getaway car.
NB: this scene plays out similar in the Director’s Cut, but without the homeless man taking the bag of money - instead there is ADR of Porter saying ‘backpack’, Rosie saying, ‘I got it’ and then an insert shot of a bag of money in the car.
As in the Director’s Cut, the Workprint ends with Porter and Rosie driving away, and Porter finally smiles.
