I HATE remakes but this needs one.

Damn right it needs to be remade. It's a phenomenal game that stuck with me for years. I thought about a remake since it came out, to the point of me trying to write a screenplay that would do justice to Max Payne. Needless to say I failed, but I was trying to come up with people that could do that.
First of all, like you said, the first game must be adapted, so the names I am about to drop must be mixed with that fact.

Here we go:
1. One actor that, based on its portrayal of Richard Harrow from Boardwalk Empire, could play Max Payne to perfection is Jack Huston;
2. David Lynch should direct the film. Sure, he made some weird movies, but I support my statement with Twin Peaks. The atmosphere and the feels I got while watching Twin Peaks were similar with those from Max Payne;
3. Beyond many things (approach, acting, photography) that went wrong with the film, one of the worst things is the screenplay. I really don't know who should write it, but one guy comes to mind: Nicolas Winding Refn (he could also be the director).

Netflix series. Then they can do the games justice

My idea for a remake is to have Max be played by Jon Hamm, Mona by Jennifer Connelly, James Remar as Lt. Bravura, with Robert Knepper as Lupino and Armand Assante as Angelo Punchinello. To better help the plot fit the movie, it'd begin with Max (portrayed as a pill-popping New York Homicide Detective) getting a call for help from Alex (whom he hasn't spoken to in years) from Roscoe Street Station. Max goes and witnesses a deal gone bad ending in a fire-fight. Max is attacked by and kills a corrupt cop, Freddie Daumer. Max and Alex escape, but Alex is shot in the back and killed by Jack Lupino, who drives away before Max can do anything. Before dying, Alex tells Max not to trust anyone in the police department. Max gets taken into custody and put on probation by Bravura and B.B., here depicted as a smarmy Internal Affairs detective with little field experience. While trying to avoid being strangled by red tape, Max tracks down Vinnie Gognitti at a hotel he runs, and after a rooftop chase, interrogates him for information on the deal gone south. From there, the plot diverges into Max's investigation in the mob and a deal involving leaked Aesir Corp. files, the drug Valkyr, and stolen bearer bonds. The whole villain hierarchy is streamlined with Lupino acting as a villain for the majority of the film with Nicole Horne (Deborah Kara Unger) as a sort of "woman behind the curtain," not unlike in the game. There'd be a few original characters and plot points to help tie the story together better. Here, Alex would've been part of an inter-agency task force investigating the spread of Valkyr. The task force would send over Special Agent Tomlin (Michael Biehn), a sunglasses-at-night bureaucratic type who interacts with Max throughout the investigation. Joe Hitchcock (Stephen Dorff) would be an egotistical, snarky Detective-turned-agent for Aesir, as well as the head of Horne's personal security detail. There's also McDonough (John Savage), Max's precinct lieutenant and the only person who seems to understand him. Throughout the film, the audience (and Max) is led to believe B.B. is a mole in police department. The twist is that it's actually Tomlin, who kills B.B. and sort of becomes the villain from then on.