Review: ‘Parker’

Jason Statham as Parker in ‘Parker’

Who ordered the half-baked Jason Statham movie? We got a big steaming order of generic, run of the mill Jason Statham movie here, we know somebody must have asked for this thing, right? From the director of “Ray” and “An Officer and a Gentleman?” Because that makes sense. That must be the only reason why this latest in the long string of bland, interchangeable Jason Statham action movies was actually made. Are guaranteed $7-10 million opening weekends and middling at best critical responses enough to do it? Cause that’s what his movies like “Safe,” “Killer Elite” and “The Mechanic” bring in, and “Parker” is no different.

“Parker” is about Parker (Statham), a criminal who helps out small gang of guys with a robbery, and who gets shot and left for dead by said guys for his efforts. So he recovers from the gunshot and goes looking for these guys. He discovers that they are planning a mysterious heist somewhere in West Palm Beach, Florida, so he heads down there to mess up their plans and to get sweet revenge. And that’s pretty much it. There’s this whole bit squeezed in there about a down on her luck real estate agent named Leslie (Jennifer Lopez, Anaconda, Gigli) who finds out about Parker’s plan and tries to get in on the money he wants to intercept, but the character is pretty annoying and really only exists to give Parker information he could have gotten in other ways anyway and to complicate things for him, hence heightening the tension that no one is feeling because the whole movie is as predictable as one might rightfully expect.

A bunch of movies have been made with this exact set up, and a large part of that is because a lot of those movies are based on books by the same guy, all featuring this bad ass Parker character. People like Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson have played roles based on this guy, so this isn’t anything new in the pantheon of Parker-based action movies, let alone action movies in general. I guess the one thing that stands out is the strong sense of place instilled in this movie, as a majority of the film takes place in West Palm Beach and they really go a long way to sell the area and the layout of the land, showing lots of big swooping coastal shots and beach line and selling WPB as the place in which there are the “most billionaires per square feet,” which may be true, but also ignores the fact that WPB is much larger than just the little piece of beach and the adjacent condos and in reality is a sprawling hell of a place which has, by far, the highest crime rates in the entire state. But still, Florida-based films, especially ones actually shot in Florida, aren’t the most common thing, so it’s always interesting to see the state show up as a location in movies (outside of Miami, anyway).

The action isn’t memorable at all, nor is it shot all that well, just more of the same ole post-modern action style, and this Parker character isn’t anything special, as there is nothing separating him from the other generic action movies out there. Which means they must have screwed this thing up because why else would so many people try to make so many movies based on this character and the myriad of books featuring him? There is obviously something that got lost in translation, as all that stuff that was seemingly interesting about the story and character were just dumped off, giving us this bland drink of water.

But hey, if you are a Jason Statham fan and you are fine with the type of movies he’s been making lately, then this is really no different. It’s no better, and it’s no worse. It just is. Which is almost worse than being bad. I’d rather this movie annoy me with its terribleness than do what it really did, which is bore me. What a shame. Could have been fun.