Sunday Review: Parker

A bad guy who's good

By Morris Dean

With Taylor Hackford's 2012 film Parker, which I watched last August but forgot to review, another fictional character made it to the screen.^* The most recent one I had then written about was Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone. The character Parker (played by Jason Stathan in the movie) was a career criminal in most of the novels Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008) wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark. (I read one or two of them many years ago, when I felt I needed to escape from serious reading.)
    Parker believes that "Everyone steals. That's what humans do." So, he concludes, there's no reason why he shouldn't pursue his profession of thievery, especially when he never hurts anyone who doesn't deserve it and always keeps his word. You know, a bad guy who's good.

    I am generally skeptical of the latest Jason Stathan movie because of their predecessors' usual over-the-top action, too often facilitated by CGI. And there does seem to be some CGI in Hackford's Parker, but not, to my sensibility, overmuch. I do think, though, that in the scene where Parker comes back to his hotel room and is attacked by his nemesis Danziger's professional assassin, the assassin should have been out for good after being bashed on the head by the heavy ceramic toilet tank cover Parker was able to hoist before being done in for good himself. Instead, back in the bedroom recovering, Parker is attacked again by a fully recovered and fit assassin and suffers a knife plunged completely through the center of his hand, whom Parker manages to fling over the 20 or 30-something-floor balcony, but with the assassin holding onto Parker's foot....Just a little bit—a little bit?—too much, especially with that ailing hand of Parker's, the knife still sticking through his left hand.

    Jennifer Lopez is nice too look at, engagingly personal, and funny as the real estate agent in Palm Springs who manages to steal a colleague's client and finds herself aiding Parker in his new and way-too-shallowly documented identity trying to locate the gang of thieves who are planning a $70 million heist somewhere in town—the gang with whom he was working in the movie's opening heist at an Ohio fair, until they double-crossed Parker and gave him a fatal reason to hunt them down not only to recover his cut but also for retribution. You know, Parker has his principles.
    Get it? Another in the rich tradition of revenge stories. But very entertaining, and I can't help but recommend it.
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Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean
* Tom Lowe's comment (below) prompted some discoveries: From IMDb's Trivia section for Parker: "This is the first adaptation of a Richard Stark/Parker novel to use the character name Parker. Although the following movies are based on the 'Parker' novels, the name was always changed: Point Blank (1967) (Walker), The Split (1968) (McClain), The Outfit (1973) (Macklin), Slayground (1983) (Stone) and Payback (1999) (Porter)."
    And, according to Trivia for Point Blank: "This movie and Payback (1999), with Mel Gibson, are both based on the book Hunter by Richard Stark."
    So...my review's opening sentence was in error, and stands corrected.

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