Play Dirty

It has been seven years since Shane Black’s last film, the muddled misfire that was franchise-revival-attempt The Predator. Play Dirty feels like course correction. Yes, obviously, it’s set at Christmas time — good luck finding a film in his catalogue that isn’t — but there are other familiar hallmarks of the writer-director here, too: deadpan dialogue, dead bodies as punchlines, a hard-boiled throwback tone and a smoky score to boot. It’s nowhere near the high-water mark of the man who was once the world’s best-paid screenwriter — but maybe this is enough, for now.

This is the latest adaptation of the Parker novel series by Donald E. Westlake, a natural fit for someone of Black’s sensibilities. Somewhat like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Parker is a coldly efficient tough-guy character who has spawned many books but enjoyed mixed results on the screen; unlike Reacher, Parker is a prolific professional robber and all-round scoundrel. “I stole something and I got away with it,” is all the backstory we get on this guy in the film, and there’s something refreshing about how uncomplicated and to-the-point the character is, living by a simple if occasionally murderous code.

A sense of impish fun keeps it just above water.

As Parker, Mark Wahlberg plays him with matching efficiency and a kind of grumpy impatience, getting the job done while never quite finding the charm or charisma of previous Shane Black leading men (Robert Downey Jr, a producer here, was previously tapped to star). We first meet Parker in the midst of a medium-stakes robbery; when he is betrayed, our anti-hero sets out for revenge — and a much bigger take. So begins an elaborate and messy heist involving a priceless statue that also, somehow, involves regime change in a South American country.

Were it not for the supporting cast, that narrative might feel overly convoluted. If Parker himself is mostly a grouchy presence, his crew lightens the load: LaKeith Stanfield is good fun as struggling theatre actor/career criminal Grofield; Keegan-Michael Key and Claire Lovering, as a married couple in Parker’s team, do a nice line in undercutting anything too serious; and Black again shows a deftness in making otherwise forgettable henchmen the funniest part of any given scene. There’s a strong sense of dark farce to it all — from the multiple corpses who somehow get better, to the man who has a fear of being thrown off a building again, and a very funny cameo from a real-life billionaire.

That sense of impish fun keeps it just above water. It allows you to forgive the slightly shoddy CGI, which undermines some otherwise solid practical stunts; and helps smooth over the occasional directing wobbles and oddly flat visual sheen. It’s far from perfect, and a little off his ’90s/’00s heyday, but amid a glut of streaming-only action-comedies trying to ape Shane Black, it’s lovely to have the real McCoy back.