Now we have "Parker," which seems like a horrible title when you consider it's the only film that's ever used the character's name. That would be like calling the next James Bond movie "007" or just "Bond." Of course now that I've said that, that's exactly what will happen some years from now when Daniel Craig is done and they decide to reboot the damn series. I really shouldn't even throw those ideas out there.
With Jason Statham portraying the character now, there was a decent chance that this would prove to be a solid flick. After all, Statham is, by all logical and mathematical calculations, A Mack Daddy, and can be tremendously entertaining even when saddled with sub-par material. You know, material that is kind of boring, or doesn't make a whole lot of sense and has some bad acting and characters that shouldn't even be there because they're pointless...
See what I did? I was implying in that last sentence that "Parker" contains all those above things because it's sub-par. That's just good writing right there.
And yes, Jason Statham DOES wear that stupid hat for most of the film. Because I take him more seriously that way.
The story is the standard "thief with morals" one, where the main character is predictably betrayed by his crew after a job and left for dead but is obviously still alive because the bad guys are freaking idiots. He decides to revenge himself upon them by stealing from his former crew, and then killing them. And that's the movie. It's not complicated, and if you've ever seen a movie featuring robbers in your life, or something direct-to-DVD starring Nicolas Cage lately, you will undoubtedly be able to call it shot-for-shot.
And you know what? That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. If it's an entertaining film, by all means do the cliche stuff, because it can still be fun. This is doubly so when you've got a badass like Jason Statham doing his thing. In fact there are some things about it which would, under normal circumstances, relegate "Parker" to being merely one of Statham's acceptable but somewhat forgettable solo efforts like "Blitz" or "The Mechanic." That meaning it's not great, but is fine for what it is. "Parker" would have fit that bill were it not for the presence of one Ms. Jennifer Lopez, upon whose well-tanned shoulders most of the blame for the crap-factor can be placed.
I could think of more useless characters in movies given enough time, but Jennifer Lopez has to be one of the most egregious examples of "albatross around a film's neck" I've seen in a long time. She's a real-estate agent who becomes Parker's "partner." She doesn't do anything in finding Parker's former crew that Parker couldn't have easily done himself. She doesn't do anything with Parker getting his revenge that he couldn't have done himself. In fact she only gets in the way of that. Even the romantic angle between she and Parker goes nowhere because it can't go anywhere since Parker is taken and isn't interested in her. In fact that revelation is the last line Lopez has in the film.
"I never had a shot, did I?"
To be a decent character? No. No you didn't.
Whenever the film starts to get interesting with the former crew (headed by Michael Chiklis) doing a heist or Parker kicking a random mob hitman's ass or something that actually means something to the plot, the film seems to think that the best course of action would then be to spend 10 minutes going through Lopez's boring life dealing with her catty co-workers and soap-opera obsessed mother and her mother's annoying little dog. Great, movie. Thanks for that. After seeing Jason Statham bash a guy's head in before throwing him off a 30-story building, I really wanted to know about Cathy from the cubicle across the way stealing that commission from J-Lo. Because Cathy is who I'm concerned about in that situation.
The only thing Jennifer Lopez does which was of any kind of value is to hide the stolen property at the end of the movie. And she hides it in a place that Parker could have easily gotten into by himself. Great, that's great. Now will somebody PLEASE explain to me why she's even here?
Oh great. It's the "Alice Eve Effect" from "Star Trek Into Darkness" - Bad actresses stripping for no damn reason. Wonderful.
It's not even that Lopez was necessarily bad I suppose, but she's such an uninteresting and pointless character that you could have gotten Charlize Theron or Noomi Rapace for it and she still would have sucked as a character, and she still would have pulled the rip-chord on the film's momentum every time she showed up. Acting chops has little to do with it, although Lopez is certainly no prize catch for the casting department.
The villains in "Parker" didn't do much to inspire any kind of fear either. Micheal Chiklis and his crew come off as so inept and stupid that there's never much to imply that there is any way that Parker isn't going to absolutely wreck them. There's no tension here, because if the bad guys are too dumb to manage to finish off a totally immobile, horrifically injured man laying on the side of the road when they have at their disposal both a gun and a body of water deep enough to drown someone in, there is no reason for me to ever believe that they pose a threat to the hero.
"Now, my most freaked out, cowardly and untrustworthy teammate - Go kill him! I'll just stand over here and not verify that you've done the job I've sent you to do, even though I know you'd have a difficult time doing it, and that repercussions will be severe if we don't kill this guy. I'm just going to take your word that you did it, because you're untrustworthy and kind of make a big mess of everything you try to do. That's how we professionals roll."
And if they were going for the "Parker is a cat toying with a mouse" angle, that would have been fine, but suddenly at the end there's a standoff and we're supposed to take these chuckle-heads seriously? Really? They're not even bright enough to notice their front door had been broken into. Then during the middle of the climactic fight where Parker is picking them off one by one, the very first thing one of them does when told to watch Jennifer Lopez is to put a hand down her blouse. Because there's never a time when being a creepy rapist isn't appropriate. And yes, he pretty much immediately gets shot to hell.
I'm more concerned about getting the timing on Bald Bull's charge right than I am of these chumps.
On top of everything else, there was a plethora of obnoxious flashbacks to things from 2 minutes ago that kept popping up throughout the film, and a lot of really, REALLY terrible dialogue that Statham was forced to recite. This is particularly notable in the beginning when Parker is reciting his "rules" to people he had no business giving a monologue to. Lopez also had one of those speeches later in the movie where she spills her guts to Parker in a scene which, like all her scenes, ended up being pointless. These weren't deal-breakers in of themselves, but they were just more little things to showcase the fact that this is just a poorly written and put together film.
Although there is ONE good line which I liked a lot, which can be seen at the very end of the trailer.
I can't say I'm totally disappointed here, considering I didn't expect much to begin with, but "Parker" was such a waste of time that it's just kind of sad. I know Statham can do better. Hell, I've seen him do better on numerous occasions. This movie needed a "Phantom Edit" to erase Jennifer Lopez like Jar Jar Binks. Then it'd be 40 minutes shorter and be merely mildly average.
THE BOTTOM LINE - There are so many movies better than "Parker" to watch. Pretty much go to Jason Statham's IMDB page and pick one at random. Unless you land on "In The Name of The King" you'll probably come out ahead. The most entertaining thing about "Parker" is hearing Nick Nolte talking like he's seconds away from 3 heartattacks and a stroke all at once.
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