Review by C.J. Bunce
Donald E. Westlake aka Richard Stark’s Parker adapted by director Shane Black? It looks good on paper. It turns out it looks even better as a big action movie starring Mark Wahlberg. Most recently we saw Jason Statham take the lead in a 2013 Parker movie. But director Shane Black’s new Amazon MGM Studios release Play Dirty is the real deal, a movie that may just be this year’s best. Beginning with a pristine pulp noir-infused, classic jazz soundtrack by Alan Silvestri, opening credits up there with the best James Bond introductions, and a surprise twist opening you won’t see coming, Wahlberg leads the next team-up of bad guys working cons Leverage style. The script is worthy of the name Westlake and the action is the best you’ll see this year. In a league with Baby Driver and The Italian Job, your next heist movie Play Dirty is now streaming on Prime Video.
Wahlberg hasn’t possessed a role like this since he played a similar thief in The Italian Job. This time he steps right in as a hardened, savvy professional who is betrayed after scoring a big cash haul at a horse track. His team includes Rosa Salazar as Zen, Thomas Jane as Philly Webb, Sebastian Carr as Knox, and Kat Hoyos as Natalie. They are a dream team, and you could see Jane’s Philly Webb in his own spin-off series–the ever-talented star of Troppo is so strong as Parker’s partner. That’s all before the opening credits even roll.
But everything falls apart and Parker’s world only goes downhill from there. Is there really honor among thieves? Or is that just a saying?
Betrayed, Parker goes after his money, enlisting old pal Grofield to help. You’ll know Grofield from the Parker novels or Lemons Never Lie (reviewed here at borg last year). The actor who runs an unprofitable local theater in Indiana doesn’t come away from his hobby/vocation to return to the criminal life all that often, but he will as an excuse to hang around with Parker. Here he is appropriately cool and casual, played by LaKeith Stanfield (Get Out, Haunted Mansion).
The big score? A shipwreck called The Lady of Arintero found off the coast of a small South American nation has a billion-dollar sunken treasure that will change the lives of its people. Too bad their current presidente is a con man who plans to run his own insurance fraud scheme to take the money from the treasure and run. Parker’s thieving partner Zen wants to bring her own con to the scenario and take the money to deliver it back to the people. Of course Parker doesn’t care–he just wants the money he lost in the last job.
The South American nation’s presidente, Ignacio De La Paz (Alejandro Edda), intends to take the treasure for display at the United Nations, where it will be stolen by a local group called The Outfit. The Outfit is the New York Mafia, headed by Lozini, played by Tony Shalhoub. In backstory Lozini previously made a deal with Parker to keep Parker away from New York. But this haul is too enticing for Parker to pass up. And what’s a deal with a crook like Lozini worth anyway?
Wahlberg is the star, but he shares the screentime with Salazar and Stanfield. Salazar’s Zen is as badass and crafty as any mobster movie gun moll. Parker brings in one of those crazy crime couples for the job–a fantastic trope done just right. Played by Keegan-Michael Key and Claire Lovering, this duo is a perfectly brilliant and hilarious Westlake re-creation and they sell each scene for all it’s worth. Chai Hansen plays Stan, the driver and last member of the team who might be able to pull off his job even when seriously inebriated, or maybe he’s just a good actor. Too bad we never get to see them at their best. No job ever goes the right way.
As for the tone, director Shane Black mixes shadowy locations and a rhythm that is equal parts The Rockford Files and Shaft. The dialogue (script by Black, Chuck Mondry, and Anthony Bagarozzi) is quick paced and only surpassed by the choreography of the crime, the twists, the chases, the escapes, and every bit of gun fire and explosion. Black’s choices with the ending are perfect. This has the satisfying ending you hope for in a major production.
Lozini has a henchman, an overly confident thug named Kincaid, played by Nat Wolff. He is a recurring disaster that adds another level of humor to the show. Chuwudi Iwuji plays a billionaire trying to get his hand on a big piece of the treasure. Add in Gretchen Mol as Philly’s wife and you have a top tier cast. Ultimately Wahlberg infuses as much of himself into the role of Parker. His interpretation may be more of a dullard and dope than the rest, but he makes the role his own, equal and probably better than his predecessor actors, a long line of Parkers including Lee Marvin, Jim Brown, Robert Duvall, Peter Coyote, Mel Gibson, and Jason Statham.
All the noir tropes come into play in this version, including the hero getting the crap beat out of him more than once (who doesn’t enjoy Marky Mark taking a beating?). Expect robbers getting robbed and killers killing killers and the best heist tropes revisited in a fresh new way. Play Dirty has more action sequences than your typical Bond movie, culminating in a heist of a train all planned out to the letter like The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. As for the train action trope, it also has elements of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Silver Streak, Logan Lucky, and Unstoppable.
Parker delivered like a James Bond movie? It just makes sense. Westlake frequently penned novels (like Forever and a Death, reviewed here) that read like Bond, many better than Ian Fleming’s own. Direction, cinematography, the acting, the stunt action–it all works doubly well because of Silvestri’s music, setting the perfect mood. I can’t overstate how much this score belongs atop the next Academy Award list.
Fans of movies with crime teams like Baby Driver, 21, Ocean’s 11, The Italian Job, and 6 Underground will love this movie. And guess what? Like the biggest action movie of them all, Play Dirty is a Christmas movie. Do not miss Play Dirty, one of 2025’s biggest cinema hits. It’s streaming now on Prime Video.
