Stars Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Bobby Cannavale and Nick Nolte Directed by Taylor Hackford The character of Parker as created by Donald Westlake (a.k.a Richard Stark) has made numerous transitions to the cinema before. Most prominent, I believe, would be Lee Marvin's Walker in Point Blank and the most recent before this was Mel GIbson's Porter in Payback. This is supposedly the first time the character has retained its own name. My familiarity of the character is based on the previously mentioned movies and the graphic novel, "Parker: The Hunter" as adapted by Darwyn Cooke. The impression I got is that the character in the movie does closely hew to the character of the books. The problem being that Jason Statham was cast in the role of Parker and with that, the movie, Parker, is very much a Jason Statham movie as one might expect. As true to the character tho, Parker is double crossed on a job and then left for dead by a bunch of supposedly independent (not tied to any organisation) thieves (which include Michael Chiklis, Clifton Collins Jr, Micah Hauptman and Wendell Pierce). When Parker recovers enough, he starts to track these thieves to get what is owed to him. In general, that's about it as it is with almost every other book in the Parker series (as it was in Point Blank and Payback). I'm sure the books might be straight-forward easy reads, but how that translate to an almost two hour movie is really dependent on how the writer and director might tackle the story as a whole. Therein lies part of the problem. Director Taylor Hackford has put out some decent movies but here seems to be extremely workman-like, and it doesn't feel too much like any other Jason Statham movie (see The Mechanic, Safe, Blitz, Killer Elite). Even the usually reliable Michael Chiklis seems to be glowering for the most part and doesn't expand beyond that, which doesn't him make as menacing as his character might be, or as dangerous as his lead character in The Shield TV series. And then there's Jennifer Lopez as a token female in what appears to be an essentially glorified cameo role as a desperate real estate agent. In short, aside from Statham, who seems very comfortable with this kind of role (even when putting on a fake Texan drawl as part of a disguise, unconvincingly), everyone else who might be in a major role seems miscast, or not given nearly enough to do with the roles they have. The story is simple enough but the pacing of the scenes seem off, especially once Parker escapes from the hospital after his near death betrayal and starts hunting down his former colleagues, and the whole plan after that. There's almost nary a red herring in sight and a lot of stuff telegraphed way in advance, which leads to an fairly predictable conclusion. For some, this is keen entertainment because it simply delivers the goods without requiring much brain power in use for the viewer. Maybe I'm being overly analytical. Still, fans of the Stath are not likely to be disappointed, although fans of the Parker series might be of a different mind. I'm not too familiar with the books, so maybe the movie is true to them, or maybe not. Darwyn Cooke's graphic novels (three of them- The Hunter, The Outfit, The Score) provide a solid visual representation of how it could have been.
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