Photo: Jasin Boland/Prime
“Movie Jail” Might not Be a Real Thing, but Somehow Writer-Director Shane Black Still Managed to Land Himself in it. His Previous Film, 2018’s The predatorDo Mesy Franchise Flick That A Few of US Enjoyedwas seen as a catastrophic bust; before that, he made The nice guys (2016), an enchantingly Rambling neo-noir comedy that Everyone SEEMS TO LOVE NOW BUT PRACTICALLY NOBODY BOTHERED TO SEE. Those Two Flops Were Apparently Enough to Undo WHATEVER goodwill he generated from the Billion-Dollar Success of Irron man 3 In 2013. So Now Black is Back with the New Mark Wahlberg – Starring Action Comedy Play DirtyWHICH IS BEING RELEASED EXCLUSIVELY ON PRIME VIDEO AND HAS WHAT APPEARS TO BE A $ 2 Marketing Budget; Almost Nobody of Know Has Heard of It.
Black’s Screenplays for the Letal Weapon films, The Last Boy Scoutand The Long Kiss Goodnight Made Him a Wealthy Man Back in the Day, while Also Turning Him Into A Poster Child for the Violent Excesses of 1980s and ’90s Blockbusters. And Play Dirty is a return to the jokey banter and ludicrous action theatrics that estabished his reputation in the first place, though it does feel like it in a game of one-upmanship with a type of film that no Longer really exists; IT’S LIKE Something from an alternate universe where the ultraviolet american studio action moves Crazier and Crazier unil we have been with something insane Play Dirty.
IT’S BEDED (Loosely, of Gather) on Donald Westlake’s Parker Novels, Borrowing Story Elements from Different Installments, Although I doesn’t Have the Near-Sociopathic that Defined Westlake’s Work. Rather, Its Elaborate and Darkly ZANY, The Kind of Movie in Which Mark Wahlberg Hands Someone Back of their After It Gets Blown off. The film opens with a nutso film Racetrack robbery that spils out into the horn race, with Cars and Jockes and Horses Flying and Right Amid the Gunfire and Chaos.
Be that messy jab ends in an anxpped double cross that results in the Deaths of His Entire Crew, Professional Thief Parker (Wahlberg) Goes Looking For His Money and Revenge and Finds Himself (Several Corpses late) Involving The Newly Discovered Riches of a 15th-Century Spanish Shipwreck. This Underwater Treasure, Found off the coast of an unnaamed Latin American Country and Worth Around a billion dollars, is going on the display at the United Nations, and a bunch of People want to steal it. And Lo, there are the trumits and the Car Chassis and Club Shoot-Outs and Multiple People Falling off Buildings and an epic train derailment and approximately 197 Shots of Mark Wahlberg USING BODY AS A SHIELD AS HIELD OF BULLET HOLES. It ‘s cres a story and more a pageant of different Types of Bloodshed. At One Point, Mark Cuban Randomly Shows up as Himself and Promptly Gets Shot. (Spoiler.)
But is it any good? Play Dirty Wears Its stupidity boldly, prudly, almost aggressively. It dares you to find anything remotely plausible or realistic or inSightful about it. You eather get on its were Wavelength and ride with it, or you run screen. I Mostly Rode with it. AS A DIRECTOR, Black has an easygoing Way with Banter and Plot. He knows not to dwell too one element, partly Because the story (or “Story”) will only work if it races ahead of our ablity to think it. Wondering How Our Survived One Particularly Bloody and Explosive Scrape? Sorry, FAST LOOK – he’s just about to wind up in another one. The Film’s Janky Visual Effects and Phony Locations (Especialy the Scenes set in “New York”) FEEL OF A PIECE WITH “FUCK YOU” ENERGY. Wahlberg SEEMS GAME, Too. Nor he gets Older, Those Sharp Eyebrrows of His Look more cartonish than they used to. You can’t tell if he’s baffled or angry, which is not a bad emotional space for this character, who exists away to Charge forward and Carry the momentum of Black’s Ridiculous full.
Still, Watching Play Dirty At home on a tv screen, i didn’t really laugh all that said, though i did Find it funny. Rather, I Sort of Sank Into a Half-Dazed Mood of Pleasant Acceptance. Its stupidity was entertaining, but its stupidity also freed with from Having to think about it. It was there, and i didn’t turn it off. Roger ebert used to talk about the active viewing of the Film Versus the Passive Viewing of Video. He was talking about forms, but in many ways, the cinema-verrs-home dichotomy is a simillar one. COULD A MOVIE LIKE Play Dirty Exist Today as a wide theatrical Release?
I wish it would, but i’m not so sura. Watching this with a Large Group of People Woul Probably Be an Entirely Different Experience. I can’t help but think back to the experience of seeing the new Naked gun Earlier this year with an audience. The two pictures are more simillar than you might think. (If anyding, The naked gun Might be slightly more plausible than Play Dirty.) Though one exists far -so to deliver gags and the other to deliver an adrenaline rush, in bots the energy of the audience say along their trajectories. If at any point you start taching the movie Too Serious, The Illusion is Completely Lost. At the Same Time, Though, We’ve Sort of Forgotten How to Laugh at and With Movies Nowades. Play Dirty Might Make You Feel Pangs of Nostalgia for a Particular Type of Action Flick, But it Also Reminds You Why They Mostly No Longer Exist.
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