Review: Play Dirty

The latest in a long line of attempts to bring Richard Stark's armed robber Parker to the big screen, Shane Black's Play Dirty feels a lot closer to the books Donald Westlake (the man behind the Stark pen name) wrote starring bungling thief Dortmunder. Superficially similar on the surface, world's apart in tone.

Parker (Mark Wahlberg) is once again motivated by revenge when the score from a mid-level racetrack heist he was part of is stolen by a fellow thief (Rosa Salazar) who leaves him for dead. By the time he catches up to her, she's spent the money to finance a much bigger heist. To recoup his losses, he deals himself in.

Westlake started writing the much more lightweight Dortmunder novels after he tried writing a Parker novel but it kept slipping into comedy, and that's pretty much what happens here. The story holds together (just), but it's the usual run of heist after heist with a few twists and surprise reveals as things repeatedly turn out to be not what they seemed without ever becoming all that interesting.

The lack of stakes extends to the cast. The crims are all just a little too over-the-top, and even Parker's buddy in crime Grofield (Lakeith Stanfield) - who is a character in the Parker novels - is played too laid back to have any real edge. Only Gretchen Mol, as the wife of one of Parker's dead friends, gives this fluff any real emotion.

Wahlberg is surprisingly not bad as Parker - at times it feels like he's the only one who's actually read a Stark novel. He's given way too much dialogue and way too many chatty / chummy scenes, but when he's given Parker business to do he comes off well (physically he's too small for the role but that's Hollywood). 

It probably helps that he's the only major character who isn't a comedy motormouth, as while everyone else is fine nobody else really stands out (even Stanfield, who's usually a winner, is on autopilot here). Black's had form in the past when it comes to combining comedy with enough edge to give his crime capers real stakes. Here? The whole thing is as weightless as the numerous CGI-heavy stunt scenes.

For fans there's a bit of business that initially seems like a fun bit of Parker continuity (it involves The Outfit), but then turns out to actually be a major part of the plot that's referenced so often you don't need to know Parker history (or have seen Point Blank / Payback) to get the point. 

Play Dirty isn't a failure as such, but it's hard not to feel let down seeing so many quality ingredients add up to something that's middling at best. Parker - under various names - has been fumbled by movie-makers time and time again; much as it'd be great to see a film that really captured the character, it might be time to let him enjoy his retirement.

- Anthony Morris