More January celluloid fun! Hey, you know I’m a Jason Statham fan, and therefore I had an obligation to go see his new movie, Parker. Usually Statham’s movies are directed by some purely action oriented director, or a more obsurce foreign director. But Parker is helmed by Taylor Hackford who directed An Officer and a Gentleman and Ray. Yep. That can either bode well for us, or tells us that the script is lame and maybe Hackford just wanted to work with Statham.
More January celluloid fun! Hey, you know I’m a Jason Statham fan, and therefore I had an obligation to go see his new movie, Parker. Usually Statham’s movies are directed by some purely action oriented director, or a more obsurce foreign director. But Parker is helmed by Taylor Hackford who directed An Officer and a Gentleman and Ray. Yep. That can either bode well for us, or tells us that the script is lame and maybe Hackford just wanted to work with Statham.
So obviously Jason Statham plays Parker, a thief with a unique code of ethics (of course) that gets double-crossed and left for dead by the rest of his crew after a job. He then plans a revenge that involves a woman as an unlikely inside person in order to hijack the crew’s latest heist.
As it turns out, Parker isn’t a bad film. The script is actually more fleshed out than most action films of this sort and Statham has more expressive moments than usual. Ok, maybe that isn’t saying much, but he is more effective than usual in the “less is more” category. He has a girlfriend that loves him but can’t change him – he is often in danger of being killed, but she stays with him anyway. There’s one scene in particular that carries more weight than I would ever expect it to be capable of carrying, but there it was.
Statham’s Parker is a thief, but these “unique code of ethics” are basically a form of Robin Hood rules that make him the likeable anti-hero sort. For the rest, he isn’t too far from most of his action characters. He does attempt a Texas accent at one point and it’s fairly amusing, and it’s acknowleged that he doesn’t really fool anyone. Parker also stars Jennifer Lopez, who’s perfectly adequate here, and perhaps a little more than, as Leslie Rodgers. The epic gravelly-voiced Nick Nolte plays Parker’s girlfriend’s dad, Hurley. He’s an ex-thief and he finds out that one of the guys in Parker’s crew is a nephew of some big mob guy. That can only spell trouble. Because you know, Parker doesn’t like that guy.
We also have Micheal Chiklis as the leader of the crew of thieves. And Bobby Cannavale as a nosey cop trying to get Leslie to date him. His role is kind of unnecessary in all this. But then, there are a lot of recognizable actors here with small roles. Maybe because Hackford is directing he got more star clout to be in this to make it seem more than your usual January release? Mission accomplished.
The action is good here, but maybe not quite as abundant as say, one of the Crank movies. This one has more stuff going on between scenes. But it’s interesting enough to keep you involved until there’s some whuppin’s. The only thing I might complain about is that the end is a bit under-whelming. It could have been drawn out of bit more. On top of that, I noticed that the credits listed “Reshoot Units”. Hmmm, reshoots. That can’t be a good sign, can it? I have to wonder if the film had a darker ending and it didn’t test well, so they tagged on a scene or two to make things a bit more tidy. Does it feel that way? Yeah, maybe a little.
Parker is kind of a formulaic Statham actioner with a little more to offer than usual. The combination of a more accomplised director, some better actors, and an action script with some more meat on its’ bones raises Parker above what you might expect here. But it does still have it’s faults. I’m in for three kittenhands, since I am a fan of Jason Statham action movies. If you’re not a fan, then you can certainly wait until cable/Netflix.
~Neil T. Weakley, your average movie-goer, still waiting for Crank 3!!