The professional thief known as "Parker" is the protagonist of a series of pulpy crime novels by author Donald E. Westlake's Richard Stark alter ego. The first actor to portray Parker on screen was Lee Marvin in John Boorman's 1967 arthouse thriller Point Blank. The Parker of Boorman's film was a stoic figure, and that's generally how he's been depicted in the many subsequent adaptations of Westlake/Stark's books. As played by Mark Wahlberg, the Parker of Shane Black's Play Dirty is similarly sardonic, but the world Black and co-writers Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi create around him is now positively cartoonish, a far cry from the grittiness of Point Blank and 1973's The Outfit, the two best Parker movies to date.
Black's film claims to be inspired by the Parker books rather than a straight adaptation of any specific work, but it's very much a case of the writer/director taking the series in a new tonal direction. Most of the Parker novels feature their anti-hero being betrayed early on and then spending the rest of the narrative seeking revenge. Black opens his film with the expected betrayal, but the quest for vengeance is soon dropped when Parker learns he can make some serious money instead.
This sees him team up with Zen (Rosa Salazar), the woman who killed his entire crew and ran off with the proceeds from a messy race track heist. Zen is from a fictional Latin American country straight out of Woody Allen's Bananas, referred to only as "my country," and she has an elaborate plan to foil the nation's dictator's plot to get his hands on some sunken Spanish treasure. Pulling rank, Parker takes over the operation and assembles a crew to get the job done this way. This sees him brush up against his arch-enemies "The Outfit" (the SPECTRE to Parker's Bond), a New York based mob who are working with "my country's" dictator.
A new Shane Black movie always promises a couple of hours of cleverly written wisecracking and in his best work, some entertaining comic interplay between two mismatched protagonists (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Nice Guys). Play Dirty sees Hollywood's one-time highest paid screenwriter deliver on the former, but the latter element is sorely lacking. There are plenty of puns, and Black refuses to resist any opportunity for a wisecrack, even in the film's most serious moments. But while the supporting cast are comfortable delivering Black's distinctive brand of sarcasm, Wahlberg flattens every line read, leaving us to wonder how much better this would have worked with Ryan Gosling or a young Bruce Willis in the role of Parker.
We don't get Black's usual mismatched buddy dynamic, with Parker generally operating as a lone wolf reluctantly forced to lead a pack. As Parker's right hand man Grofield, LaKeith Stanfield makes for a fun comic foil but he rarely shares the screen with his straight man. Initially it seems we're set for some sexual frisson between Parker and Zen, but while Salazar delights in playing a distractingly sexy character, Wahlberg's woodenness means there's zero sexual chemistry between the two.
Black's focus on comedy often proves an ill fit with what's actually playing out on screen. Scores of people are killed, mostly by Parker, and a lot of them really don't deserve it. There's a shocking moment early on that sees Parker unexpectedly kill a man in cold blood in front of his wife and young child, but the movie has no interest in wrestling with the implications of asking the audience to get behind a man capable of such an act. Despite Zen killing Parker's crew, including his best friend, we're never given a sense that he harbours much animosity towards her, nor that Zen might be planning to double-cross him once again. There's a much more gripping version of this narrative that makes it clear that both these characters are attracted to one another while also waiting for the opportunity to put a bullet in their brains. Black's action scenes are of the sort that likely read great on paper, but thanks to some second-rate CG and a laughably unconvincing recreation of NYC on an Australian backlot, they're a visual disaster.
But for all its flaws, Play Dirty is still a Shane Black movie, which means you're likely to get a few laughs from it even if you're not invested in its thinly drawn characters or shoddy plotting. The best way to approach Play Dirty is to think of it as a Bob Hope comedy with squibs. Black isn't taking this seriously, so why should you?
Play Dirty is on Prime Video from October 1st.
Directed by: Shane Black
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, LaKeith Stanfield, Rosa Salazar, Keegan-Michael Key, Chukwudi Iwuji, Nat Wolff, Thomas Jane, Tony Shalhoub
