Whether we’ve taken notice or not, but, much like your James Bonds, Jack Ryans and Jack Reachers, the character at the centre of Shane Black‘s Play Dirty – Parker – is a cinematic mainstay who has appeared in films dating back to the 1960s, portrayed either directly or taken inspiration from by a multitude of sizeable talent; Lee Marvin in 1967’s Point Blank, Jim Brown in 1968’s The Split, Robert Duvall in 1973’s The Outfit, Peter Coyote in 1983’s Slayground, Mel Gibson in 1999’s Payback, and Jason Statham in 2013’s Parker – the latter the only time the character has officially been portrayed.
Now Parker is being embodied by Mark Wahlberg in a Black-penned script (co-written with Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi) that takes elements of the Parker series by author Richard Stark, but is essentially its own original story; well, as original as these kind of buddy action-double crossing-heist thrillers can be.
Opening with a slick, if chaotic action sequence that very much speaks to Black’s ease within the genre, Play Dirty gives us more than enough to chew on before it even settles into a narrative and treats us to some animated opening credits that feel quite 007-coded. There’s a bank heist, murder, and a wild car chase that spills out onto a horse track, resulting in Parker taking a bullet at the hands of his supposed crew cohort, Zen (Rosa Salazar), who wants to take the heist profit for herself and executes her team accordingly. It takes more than a gun shot and being left in the freezing cold to take down Parker though, and, fueled by the scorn of the wife of one of his late team members (Gretchen Mol‘s Grace), he vows revenge at any cost.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long for Parker to locate Zen, and, for reasons that mainly seem there to push the story along in a slightly different manner than expected, he opts to not kill her and, instead, aligns himself with a heist she has intentions of pulling off. It’s a grand, sunken piece of treasure that would be enough to fund her starving South American homeland should it be sold, and because this plan means Zen would be stealing from Parker’s nemesis – Lozini (Tony Shalhoub) – he doesn’t mind putting his plans of killing her on hold. It’s all a little ludicrous, but you don’t really mind when Black makes sure proceedings move along at quite a breakneck pace, introducing a series of amusing characters along the way.
This includes Keegan-Michael Key and Claire Lovering as a duo of overzealous “masters of disguise”, Nat Wolff as Lozini’s punching bag of a henchman, and the scene-stealing LaKeith Stanfield as Grofield, another Parker novel familiar, a devoted thespian who commits crime in order to fund his theatre. He’s an ACTOR first and foremost, and the irony isn’t lost that all the trouble he’s going for is for nothing, as no one attends the shows he performs in the very theatre he’s keeping afloat. In the hands of Stanfield, Grofield is a fascinating character, bursting with energy and charisma, and the film is all the better when it lets he and Wahlberg bounce off each other.
Whilst Play Dirty isn’t close to being Black to his finest form, he at least injects his usual Christmas setting for good measure, as well as displaying that he hasn’t lost his knack for consistent action and amusing banter. It occasionally gets lost in itself and its many character strands, but it’s exciting enough to keep your attention before Black returns with, hopefully, something a little more classical.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Play Dirty is now streaming on Prime Video.
