While there’s a real case to be made for whether streaming is truly killing movies, there’s also a counter argument to be made that debuting films on the small screen means that certain directors get to not only stay in the game, but can freely continue to ply their trade even if their box office frustratingly doesn’t match their talents. A prime example of this is Play Dirty, the newest action/crime epic from the king of the smart-ass thriller, Shane Black whose career seemed to be falling on hard times after the magnificent The Nice Guys bombed and The Predator drew criticism as arguably one of the worst of the franchise.
Digging into the Parker series of pulp novels by Donald E. Westlake, Play Dirty hopes to follow in the footsteps of John Boorman’s Point Blank and Brian Helgeland’s Payback – two other films that adapted Parker stories but refrained from using the character’s original name – can Black’s sensibilities and ear for snappy banter manage to put the director back on his quip-flinging, gun-blasting, dad-joking throne?
Meet Parker, a near legendary heist man who managed to rack up a god-like rep by somehow going up against mafia-esque crime syndicate The Outfit and managing to walk away with a draw – however, as we’re about to witness thanks to a heist at a race track suddenly go down the tubes, having a rock solid reputation doesn’t help much if you job goes hideously bad. Not only does the robbery go all squirrelly, but once the smoke has settled and the surviving members of the team have made it to their hide out, they’re all double crossed by female member Zen, who promptly shoot them all and then makes off with the haul.
Of course, it’s not like Parker hasn’t been shot and left for dead before, so after a quick bout of recuperation he bounces back looking for revenge, but instead finds his way into something bigger. It seems that Zen only stole the money to finance an even bigger job that’ll require her to pull off a heist and outwit a South American dictator who is looking to bankrupt his own contry by selling off a recently salvaged ship from the15th century named the Lady Of Arintero. Somehow blundering in and making himself a vital part of the team, Parker and his various, other, oddball pals latch onto this gargantuan heist and try to figure out how to steal the jewel encrusted figurehead off a Spanish galleon.
However, things gradually get even more complex when Lozini, the head of The Outfit, gets wind of Parker breaking the truce by entering New York and interfering with his business.
But even if Parker and his associates manage to bamboozle a dictator and pull the wool over the eyes of the New York mob, there’s also the issue that Zen has already shot him once before during a post-heist after glow – can he trust her again?
So, right from the start, we have something similar to a John Woo/Silent Night situation where we find an old master not quite at the peak at their powers, but the fact that they’re in their old stomping grounds at all is reason enough to celebrate. Anyone expecting vintage, platinum Black that plays along the pulp lines of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys may walk away from Play Dirty feeling that the director has instead veered down the same cartoonish road that Renny Harlin took when filming Black’s script for The Long Kiss Goodnight. The scrappy crime antics of other Parker adaptations have been swapped out for surprisingly huge action sequences and some may find the action beats get in the way of the more gritter moments that bring to mind the unevenness of The Predator. However, I’ve always found that even lesser strength Black extraordinarily watchable (yes, even The Predator) and despite some flaws that inherently come with streaming exclusives, Play Dirty proves to be a nicely undemanding face breaker that fires out one liners and dad jokes faster than some of the wayward gunfire.
For a start, seeing that Mark Wahlberg may be a reliable name for Amazon to build movies around, that doesn’t mean that he’s the right guy to handle the murderous heft that comes with Parker. While Lee Marvin gave “Walker” an almost inhuman sense of unstoppable dedication in Point Blank, and Mel Gibson fashioned him as a gravelly voiced thug with near-cartoon character levels of survival; Wahlberg plays him simply as Mark Wahlberg, but in a slightly angrier mood and it doesn’t help that the film tends to give the cooler lines to other people in an effort to give him the illusion of a no-nonsense killer. On the other hand, it gives Rosa Salazar (Battle Angel Alita) the opportunity to kind of steal the movie as the double crossing Zen who gets to deliver a more tougher version of the classic femme fatale with muddy allegiance issues.
Convincing both with the action, the drama and the ability to chew on one of Black’s signature kiss-off lines like it’s cordite-flavoured gum, hopefully this will usher in yet more sizable roles for the actress and those sizable eyes of hers. She’s joined by a sizable supporting cast that amusingly sees virtually all of them get better lines than the lead, be it smaller roles for the likes of previous Black collaborators Thomas Jane and Keegan-Michael Key all the way down to various examples of snivelling, low level criminals spluttering out a final rib tickler before their ticket is punched. However, there’s extra points for LaKeith Stafield’s struggling actor/heist man character who only performs robberies to finance his struggling theatre.
While the muscular action scenes may sit a little awkwardly against the heist planning and acidic banter, it’s good to see that Amazon is willing to bankroll Black’s wild imagination for action sequences, even if some of the CGI isn’t quite up to the task. In fact, the movie opens with the film throwing everything but the kitchen sink at a chase sequences that sees cars spill onto a horse racing track that subsequently leads to equines and jockeys scattered like nine pins in the chaos. Later in the film, Black attempts to go even bigger with an extended sequence that sees the timetable of a daring train heist/crash suddenly brought forward by twenty-four hours that sees Parker’s incredibly drunk crew scrabbling to improvise. It’s big, it’s ballsy, it’s about as feasible as flying pork, but if you can forgive some occasionally iffy visuals, it’s also a lot of dumb fun that continually gives off a sly wink while having absolutely no regard for collateral damage whatsoever and a mischievous mean streak a mile wide (watch the moment where a flaming goon tries to put himself out in an electrified puddle and try not to snort with laughter).
Yes, there’s been better offerings from Black, but there’s been worse too and anyone who’s missed the director’s many cinematic weaknesses (flippancy, dense plotting, Christmas), will be thrilled that he’s operating in his old wheelhouse. So does this mean we’re getting a more prolific Shane Black in his old age? Well, if Play Dirty does well by whatever rules streaming movies play by, there’s a chance we could get a whole series of continuing Parker adventures and I’d be fairly cool with that. However, if we do, can we give Wahlberg a few more jokes next time – it’s not fair that everyone else gets the best lines.
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