Certain actors
become so well known for the type of films that they are in that this
reputation can serve as a handicap if they are attached to the wrong project.
With Tom Hanks, audiences expect him to be playing a character with a certain
degree of likeability. With Zack Galifianakis, oddball humor is to be expected,
and Jason Statham brings the demands of non-stop action. Fans don’t want to see
Statham attempting to act; they want him to bring his typical bad-ass persona
to each and every project. With genre actors, familiarity is preferred over
variety, which actors like Christian Bale or Gary Oldman excel at. Statham’s
latest action vehicle, Parker, has the storyline of a straightforward action
film but gets a little too caught up in extraneous additions. The largest of
these is actress Jennifer Lopez, whose character simply serves as an anchor to
the film’s narrative.
When you take
away the stupid disguises that Statham wears throughout the film and the
unnecessary and barely useful side-kick played by Lopez, Parker is a clear-cut
crime revenge film very similar to many other action films. The title character
played by Statham is a thief with a strict moral code of ethics: “Don’t steal
from people who can’t afford it and don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it.”
This works fine for Parker, but when he does a job with a group of thieves that
do things differently, he ends up half-dead on the side of the road.
After a quick
recovery, Parker sets out to hunt down the group of men who double-crossed him
(headed up by Michael Chiklis). He tracks them to Palm Beach
I’m not quite
certain if Lopez was meant to provide comedic relief or was simply another name
actor that they could cram somewhere into the storyline. She is now too old to
be Parker’s romantic lead, though the film does have some fun ridiculing Leslie
for assuming Parker wants to sleep with her when he actually has a much younger
lover already. Nick Nolte also shows up for a few scenes, though all of this
simply detracts from the action that audiences came to see this film for in the
first place.
The Blu-ray
includes a commentary with director Taylor Hackford, as well as a making-of
featurette and a few other extras. These are also included on the DVD, but
exclusive to the Blu-ray disc are two additional featurettes. One of them is
about action and the other about the origin of Parker.
Entertainment Value:
7.5/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 6/10
Historical
Significance: 3/10
Disc Features: 7/10
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