A Darkly Funny Crime Caper
Summary
Play Dirty has some genuinely funny moments and some entertaining action scenes; it is let down by some already dated CG and I found it went on a little too long as well. It’s still an entertaining action comedy which is worth a watch.
Plot: A ruthless thief and his expert crew stumble onto the heist of a lifetime that pits them against the New York mob.
Review: I’ve never read any of the Parker novels, but I’ve enjoyed the previous movies Payback with Mel Gibson and Parker with Jason Statham just as entertaining crime capers.
I take it in the books the character of Parker is a ruthless, unsympathetic bastard? That’s the way he’s portrayed by Mark Wahlberg, and it is at times quite jarring how he just seems to murder people in cold blood. He’s not a character I particularly liked; I found his crew, especially LaKeith Stanfield as Grofield far more appealing. Zen (Rosa Salazar) is an interesting character as we never know if she can be trusted or not, but that story comes to a very abrupt end.
This movie is directed by Shane Black so as you’d expect it has the usual snappy dialogue which is at times outright hilarious and then you have his dark side come out with moments of violence. It’s mostly cartoonish but I find Black can sometimes have an overly mean side in his movies and this is no different. I think this type of tale is very much in Black’s wheelhouse and is certainly a vast improvement over The Predator.
There is some laughably bad CG at times especially the horse race and train sequence which already look dated but we get a couple of fights and it is for the most part well paced.
Tony Shalhoub doesn’t get to do much as the villain, Lozini and is never particularly threatening; if anything Parker is nastier than he is. Thomas Jane is also criminally wasted in a small role which is a shame as he makes every movie better.
Alan Silvestri provides the score, and it very much has his recognizable sound while also giving off some jazzy vibes which work perfectly for this heist caper.
Overall, Play Dirty has some genuinely funny moments, and it has a few decent action scenes but a lot of them are let down by poor visual effects. Streaming movies rarely have a rewatchability factor but I could maybe sit through this again in the future without much trouble, however, I’d likely watch Payback or Parker again instead.