Prime Time: Play Dirty (2025)

Another attempt to successfully adapt some of the "Parker" books, written by Donald E. Westlake, into something that could be viewed as a profitable movie property, Play Dirty has the bonus of being directed by Shane Black, who also worked with Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi to create the screenplay. Unfortunately, it's the Shane Black of recent years, and not peak Shane Black. And he's decided to give himself a challenge by putting Mark Wahlberg in the main role.

Parker (Wahlberg) is involved in a heist that ends well, until his team is killed off by someone who betrays them. Aiming to get another payday lined up, as well as some revenge, Parker ends up helping Zen (Rosa Salazar) with a planned robbery that will once again get him targeted by the powerful and dangerous Lozini (Tony Shalhoub). Lozini has his goons, but Parker has Zen, Grofield (LaKeith Stanfield), Ed and Brenda (Keegan-Michael Key and Claire Lovering), and Stan (Chai Hansen). And he aims to stay one or two steps ahead of everyone else.

This should be great. It's a perfect marriage of material and writer-director. So the fact that it isn't feels like a confirmation that things started to go wrong when the casting decisions were made. Wahlberg can be good in movie roles, and I've enjoyed him in many other features over the years, but it has become harder and harder to view him as some kind of cheeky charmer with every opportunity to be reminded of how he puts himself across in everyday life. Not that Play Dirty necessarily wants the character to be viewed that way, but, then again, the film doesn't ever really settle on what it wants.

This is a mess, disappointingly inconsistent as it lurches from one unsteady set-piece to the next. Parker is sometimes ready to quip and wink at others, sometimes just intent on being dead-eyed and murderous. The characters around him have the potential to be a fun mix, but most of them are either underused or not used in the right way. This should have been a home run for Shane Black. He barely avoids a strike out.

Salazar is a great fit for her role, and arguably the highlight of the film. Other standouts include Hansen, Chukwudi Iwuji (who plays someone caught up in the unfolding scheme), and Nat Wolff as one of the main generals to Lozini. That maybe tells you all you need to know. Wahlberg has a bit of presence, but no charisma, Stanfield is crying out to be allowed to have more fun with his role, and both Key and Lovering seem to have been picked for one scene that makes decent use of them.

There are similarities between bad action movies and bad comedies. Cast the wrong person in the lead and you're scuppered. Punchlines aren't effective if nobody cares about the setups. And you can't cover up your mistakes by simply making things louder and busier on the way to a weak and completely mishandled ending. Play Dirty is a bad action movie, but it occasionally mixes things up by also being a bad comedy. The opening sequence is decent, and had me getting my hopes up for the rest of the film, but it quickly goes downhill from there.

I think it's unlikely to happen, but I'd love to see Shane Black take things down a notch and bring us a stripped-down and low-budget detective film for his next feature. Something that would sit nicely alongside his best work, but also sticks to a grittier tone that might still surprise his fans. 

3/10

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Noirvember: Payback (1999)

An enjoyable remake of Point Blank (well, a retelling of the tale that Point Blank was based on anyway), featuring Mel Gibson in the lead role of the wronged man out for revenge, and his half of a criminally-acquired stash of money, Payback is a rough ‘n’ tough bit of entertainment that tries to stand out from the crowd by having more ruthless behaviour and bursts of violence than you might expect from a film with such a big star name attached.

Gibson is Porter, a man shot and left for dead after being betrayed during a job that also involved his wife (Deborah Kara Unger) and his best friend (Gregg Henry). Once he starts on his quest to get the money owed to him - not the full amount stolen, just his half - Porter soon finds himself in more and more danger as he has to approach increasingly powerful members of a large criminal organisation.

Directed, for the most part (the production wasn’t exactly smooth sailing), by Brian Helgeland, who also wrote the screenplay, subsequently reworked by Terry Hayes, it’s hard to see why people viewed this as something that needed rescuing. And when I say people I mean “Hollywood suits”. What is here isn’t for everyone, but the same could be said for Point Blank. The fact that the main character is such a shitty person makes it more interesting, especially when you realise that he still has a certain moral code that makes him one of the least shitty people in a world full of much bigger scumbags who inhabit the world he lives in.

Dialogue may not be sharp, and the dour colour palette isn’t exactly a big plus, but plotting is clear, characters are nicely sketched, and Helgeland does some excellent work, knowing what viewers need to see and what they don’t. The unfolding chain of events may be grim, but it’s also somehow still fun . . . right up until it isn’t. And when the fun stops, well, you know the ending is close. You just don’t know if it’s going to be a good or bad ending.

Helgeland helps himself a lot by casting such a great selection of faces. Gibson is great in the main role, doing the kind of tough and unpredictable schtick he could do in his sleep, and Henry has a knack for playing the kind of character you just know could double-cross you at any moment. Unger is sadly underused, but there are two excellent, and very different, turns from Lucy Liu and Maria Bello that more than make up for the brevity of her screentime. There are also roles for David Paymer, Bill Duke, William Devane (one of the most sorely-undercelebrated actors of his generation, in my view), James Coburn, and Kris Kristofferson, as well as one or two others you should recognise. I cannot single out any one of these actors for praise, but that’s because they all get to be equally brilliant at different times in the movie.

I really like this. It’s not as good as the original work it is based on, some better visuals and a more interesting blend of score and soundtrack could have helped (although the opening music from Chris Boardman, playing over the extended credit sequence, is superb), but I think it’s an enjoyably lean, mean, neo-noir that always seems willing to go one step further than viewers might expect. I recommend it.

8/10

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Noir-vember: The Grifters (1990)

Roy (Joan Cusack), Lilly (Anjelica Huston), and Myra (Annette Bening) are three con artists, and they're working on different levels. They're also connected in ways they might sometimes wish they weren't. Lily is Roy's mother, although she hasn't been in his life for many years, and Myra is his girlfriend. There's trouble brewing when these three end up in the same space together, and a chain of events start to unfold that is both dark and tragic, and also sadly inevitable.

Directed by Stephen Frears, The Grifters remains one of my favourite neo-noirs and one of my favourite con movies, and I do love me a whole load of con movies. I was absolutely blown away when I first saw it, over two decades ago, and the passing of time has done nothing to dull the power of the final scenes.

Based on a book by Jim Thompson, the script by Donald E. Westlake (no stranger to writing some gritty crime fare himself) manages to consistently entertain and inform while viewers also see (and hear, thanks to the great score from Elmer Bernstein) those big storm clouds gathering. Even the earlier moments of darkness, such as a character receiving a blow to the stomach so hard that he develops some internal bleeding, have a lighter touch before the world that these characters inhabit starts to oppress and restrain them further, trying to forcefully imprint on them the fact that there's no escape for anyone who has spent so long living that lifestyle.

Despite his many iconic roles over the years, Cusack gives a performance here that easily sits alongside his very best, and it is always a pleasure to be reminded of the time he used to seem to care about his work. His effortless cool is tempered by his baby-faced looks, allowing him to maintain an innocent and friendly manner with anyone he decides to try and wring some money from. Bening is just as smart and savvy, in many ways, but uses her looks and sex appeal to get what she wants, and she also delivers a top performance. Then you have Huston, a veteran who knows that her days may be numbered. How much can she put away before then? Is it even possible for her to get out? This constant scheming, and desperation, informs the superb performance from Huston, and Lilly is one of many brilliant characters she's given us over her career, a devious monster that will turn your stomach by the time the end credits roll.

Stephen Frears seems to enjoy leading viewers into the world of these characters, showing us the art of the cons with no small amount of admiration for those with the skill and, well, confidence to pull them off. It feels like most of the work has been done before the cameras even started rolling, between the superb casting and the choice of everyone working behind the camera, from the writer to the editor, etc, and the final product falls just shy of being a flawless classic.

As a major bonus, you also get supporting turns from Pat Hingle (playing the boss Lilly works for), J. T. Walsh, Charles Napier, and small amounts of screentime for Stephen Tobolowsky, Sandy Baron, Xander Berkeley, and Jeremy Piven (blink and you may miss him though).

A tough film to recommend to people, due to the dark nature of the content, but I do so anyway. You won't be grinning and ready to skip back to the real world straight after you've watched it, but you may well find that you have a new favourite film.

9/10

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Parker (2013)

Parker (played here by Jason Statham) is a bad man, but one of the good ones. Does that make sense? No. Well, he's a thief with his own set of morals. For example, he always tries to rob only from those who deserve/can afford it. He doesn't like anyone to get hurt if it can be avoided. And when he says that he'll do something he always does it. When he's double-crossed by some colleagues and left for dead, Parker sets out to make things right, even as his wounds are still healing.

Based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake, Parker has a decent enough script by John J. McLaughlin and competent direction from Taylor Hackford. Fans of the character have noted that it doesn't really feel like a Parker movie, but it's certainly an enjoyable Jason Statham movie.

Alongside the leading man, support comes from Jennifer Lopez, Bobby Cannavale, Micah A. Hauptman, Clifton Collins Jr, Emma Booth, Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce and Nick Nolte. Lopez has the biggest supporting role, as an estate agent who gets caught up in Parker's scheme, and she's enjoyable, if unspectacular, in the role. It's a shame that the scene in which Parker makes her disrobe to prove that she's not wearing a wire didn't feel completely, and eye-rollingly, gratuitous, but I'm sure J-Lo fans won't be complaining. Cannavale just keeps doing solid work, and is quickly becoming someone I like to look out for in movies, and his turn here as a concerned police officer is another good one. Nolte and Booth are fine, while Chiklis, Pierce, Hauptman and Collins Jr. are all suitably mean.

Action fans may be disappointed that there aren't more fights throughout the movie, but what IS onscreen is good stuff. It's gritty, brutal stuff in places, with Statham taking a lot of hits as he tries to continue on his path of vengeance. Take note, however, that it's not just the fight scenes that might make you wince. Yes, this is another movie in which The Stath attempts an accent, and it's pretty horrible.

Parker is, like many other Jason Statham movies, an easy film to enjoy. It doesn't require intense concentration, it's not trying to change the rules of the game, it's just a solid bit of action entertainment. I recommend it to viewers who probably already suspect that they're going to enjoy it anyway.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Parker-Blu-ray-Jason-Statham/dp/B00CP7ZWMW/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1394051775&sr=1-2&keywords=parker