A thief with a unique code of professional ethics is double-crossed by his crew and left for dead. Assuming a new disguise and forming an unlikely alliance with a woman on the inside, he looks to hijack the score of the crew's latest heist. Parker is a thief who has an unusual code. He doesn't steal from the poor and hurt innocent people. He is asked to join four other guys on a job. They pull it off flawlessly. They tell Parker that what they got can help them set up another job which will net them much more. But Parker doesn't want to join them and asks for his share. But they need it all so they try to kill him. They dispose of his body but someone finds him–he is still alive–and takes him to the hospital. After recovering he sets out to get back at the ones who tried to kill him, another one of his codes. Despite being told that they are working for a known mobster which he was not aware of, he still wants to go after them. He learns where they are and poses as a wealthy Texan looking to buy a house. So he hires a real estate agent, Leslie Rogers to show him around. He is actually trying to find out where they're holed up. And when he finds it, he sets out on his plan to get them. But when they learn he is alive, they contact the mobster to take care of him. So the mobster sends a killer to take care of him. And Leslie also finds herself intrigued with him so she follows him. If you enjoy action movies, tough guys, an engaging plot, and decent acting, this one more than fills the bill. Going into this one I was somewhat apprehensive as Jason Statham movies miss more than they hit, and when you throw Jennifer Lopez in, I was really quite leery and afraid this one was going to be stupid and a typical Statham slam-fest….WRONG!! I've got to give it to both Lopez and Statham for pulling off not only a entertaining movie, but for also doing really quit a good job of selling their respective roles. The storyline has been done before, but there are enough twists and turns in this movie to keep it fresh and not totally predictable. My suggestion for you is if this type of movie is your thing, then don't miss this one. A decent, solid action/heist movie that suffers a little in places due to a variety of things I'll note below. On the whole, however, it is a decent movie and way better than the last Statham movie I saw - Blitz - which was a little dull.<br/><br/>What you get is Statham being Statham. You know what to expect with his films and he doesn't disappoint here. Fight scenes tend to be quite well done and there was an attention to small details that I found refreshing.<br/><br/>For instance, in one fight, Statham is wrestling with a thug for a gun. He ejects the clip, grabs it and stabs it in the guy. I doubt that is terribly realistic, but it was funny. Where the scene worked was that the gun would still have a round chambered. Some gun scenes are just deplorable in movies, but they used this fact to good advantage in the scene and Statham finished off the bad guy with that chambered round. He then pulls the clip free, loads it in the pistol and works the slide to chamber a new round. I know this might not sound like much, but the number of times I watch a film where the gun mechanics are hand-waved away is ridiculous. It was nice to see them actually get it right for once.<br/><br/>If the movie has any real faults it is in the pacing. The film bogs down in a couple of places and perhaps a more aggressive edit might get rid of some of the unnecessary fat in this movie. There's not a lot, but what there is slows things down a little too much.<br/><br/>The other thing I took issue with are the thugs. One of them is supposed to be the son/relative of a big Chicago mobster. Yet the rest of the gang treat him like an idiot (he is) and give him precisely zero respect. I couldn't help thinking every time I saw this… "All he has to do is pick up the phone and complain to daddy and these guys are history!". Apparently it was a thought that didn't occur to either the thug gang, or the mobster's son, and it seemed just plain wrong that they would be dumb enough to treat him like that.<br/><br/>All in all, though, Parker is entertaining fare. I won't say it's Statham's best movie by a long way. But it is also a long way from his worst.<br/><br/>Worth a watch. Tonally, Parker's not so much broad or inclusive as weirdly schizophrenic, vacillating between flat comedy and spiked savagery, the product of a painfully slapdash script that also includes such laughable incidental dialogue as "pizza-I love that sh.t" and "beers and jewels, baby."
Marorr replied
295 weeks ago