Play Dirty

Parker is one cool son of a bitch. Dark, super-cynical, wicked, deadly, smart, violent and ruthless, he can also be caring, responsible, generous and funny. When Parker as a character is properly portrayed, doing justice to the book version once so elegantly crafted by a certain Donald E. Westlake (who wrote the books under the name "Richard Stark"), he is fantastic. Mel Gibson, in particular, proved this when he portrayed Parker perfectly in Brian Helgeland's wonderful Payback. That's how Parker should behave, act, think and reason. His cynical prose, sharp tongue and often outrageously calm demeanour are mixed with a penchant for violence. Violent, hard-hitting, nonchalant violence - in abundance. The fact that the Helgeland/Gibson company hasn't made more than one Parker film is a sadness in itself. There's so much good stuff there, in the books, and they could no doubt have built on the noir-soaked struggle against The Outfit and other scum that Parker was up to, there.

There is little to no chemistry between the actors and Wahlberg is always completely wrong in the role of Parker.

Play Dirty is not based on a specific Parker book but mixes and matches well-chosen parts from four of them according to writer and director Shane Black. Black made his name as the scriptwriter behind Lethal Weapon, Last Scout, The Predator and later Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys, and would probably be the right man to do Parker justice, at least on paper. The initial idea was that Play Dirty would feature a fast-talking Robert Downey Jr in the lead role and that the script would be made darker and more cynical for a cinema release, but that didn't happen. Instead, Shane's version of Parker found a home with Amazon Prime and their ongoing multi-film deal with Mark Wahlberg helped put the Boogie Nights/Max Payne actor in the lead's shoes, something that should never have happened.

The patented super-cynicism of the books is in Amazon's version mostly replaced by bad flab jokes.

This is because Mark lacks all the charisma of the screen, and always has. As in Max Payne, Me Time, Spenser Confidential, The Union, Father Stu or Family Plan, Mr Wahlberg plays only one role, himself, and does so without an ounce of charisma or presence, which often makes his much-hyped blockbusters seem flat, lifeless and devoid of star power and charm. So too here. Wahlberg's interpretation of Parker is the same as when he played all his other uninspired roles, and the character's cynical demeanour and quiet but tough personality have been lost.

The story is a very ordinary heist story, too. Villains screw each other after a big bank robbery but come together (mercifully) and finally agree not to kill each other for betrayal and disloyalty, but instead decide to help each other pull off one last big heist together. We saw it in Red Notice. We saw it in Kevin Hart's Lift and in 8700 other films - and we're seeing it now in Play Dirty, which is yet another in the line of flat, stupid, unoriginal, soulless direct-to-streaming premieres that no one needs to waste time on. Shane has certainly spiced up the script with his patented fast-paced dialogue and plenty of black humour, but since Wahlberg in particular can't deliver it, most of the scenes fall flat. It would have helped if the action scenes worked but they don't really either as many of them are AI/GC assisted and halfway through look more like cutscenes from Uncharted 3 than anything else. There are clearly worse effects to be found in the world of cinema, but that doesn't change the fact that the action cavalcade in Play Dirty looks like it's pretend, all the way through.

Parker, as a character, deserves much better than this and there are few times that more potential and talent has been wasted than right here. If we skip Mister No-Charisma himself in the lead role here, who I have rarely found to work as a "leading man", then of course Shane Black is in many ways brilliant just like composer Alan Silvestri, cinematographer Philippe Rousselot and production designer Owen Paterson. There is plenty of talent here but it doesn't matter when the end result is the same ugly, TV-scented mess as so many other of these bland streaming films.