I just watched this the other day on the dish which was in high def. I really liked this film and it's definitely a remake to Point Blank. If not then it borrowed a great deal of material from that great film.
I saw this film at the Austin Film Festival with Helgeland in attendance. Honestly, I don't remember the first cut all that well to tell how much improved this cut was, but I did enjoy the new cut. It was a pretty straight forward story that seemed like an old pulp novel -- which was the intention.
It was amazing to hear the things that the studio objected to, and the fact they fired him off the picture the day after winning his Oscar.