Expert thief Parker (Mark Wahlberg) finds himself forced to work with the woman who double crossed him and his crew in order to take down the score of a lifetime. 

Play Dirty has all of the credentials to be an exceptional action comedy. It is based on the Parker book series by Donald E. Westlake under the pen name of Richard Stark. The character of Parker appeared in twenty-four novels and is that of an expert and ruthless thief capable of surviving brutal double crosses. The character has appeared in at least seven movies including the classic Point Blank starring Lee Marvin as Parker. This film was co-written and directed by Shane Black, one of the best writers of action comedy to grace the silver screen. His screenwriting credits include Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout whilst his Writer/Director gigs have included Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys. All of which makes Play Dirty a crushing disappointment in its failure to be consistently funny or serve exciting action sequences. 

Perhaps the failure begins with the ludicrous plot line. One which is actually entirely new and not adapted from the novels. Zen (Rosa Salazar) chooses to double cross and kill Parker’s entire crew because she needs seed money for another job which will free her country (always unnamed throughout) from a presidential dictator. I will let you discover the joy of how a heist will depose a country’s president if you choose to bother to watch the film. Then on top of that we have a group of characters that form Parker’s new crew that all feel like they belong in different films. Characters that could work somewhere else but not here and certainly not together. Grofield (LaKeith Stanfield) owns a failed theatre and loves acting when he is not helping master mind robberies. Husband and wife team Ed and Brenda Mackey (Keegan-Michael Key and Claire Lovering) are the super kooky brains of the team and offer the most laughs and Stan (Chai Hansen) is the getaway driver who likes alcohol. None of the characters are particularly interesting and they certainly do not seem like people who could actually do the crimes they are committing. 

The biggest failure of the film however is Mark Wahlberg’s casting as Parker. When casting a brutal career criminal there is a requirement to fill that role with an actor who has some sense of gravitas about them and who can own the screen. Parker has been portrayed by the likes of Lee Marvin, Robert Duvall, Peter Coyote and Mel Gibson. Wahlberg is not on the same level. Heck, Jason Statham’s version of Parker has more presence. It seems as though all of the promise Wahlberg showed in earlier roles such as The Departed and The Fighter have disappeared for good in favour of charisma-less generic action films. 

Shane Black’s films usually rely on the chemistry and banter between its leads. Here the void that is Wahlberg’s delivery finds no chemistry with either Salazar’s Zen or Stanfield’s Grofield. Which means laughs are few and far between. This puts a lot of pressure on the action sequences delivering and unfortunately some rough CGI in amongst some wacky scenarios means these fall flat as well. 

There is little to recommend in Play Dirty and my only hope is that Shane Black comes back with something much more of the calibre he is capable of with his next project.