A three-act narrative stretched out into four. Parker is Jason Statham’s chance to work with a reputable director (Taylor Hackford, “Ray”) and a semi-coherent script (for awhile). He teams up with Jennifer Lopez for a decidedly tame partnership. Oddly, she wants him but he doesn’t want her. Somewhere Nick Nolte, getting stranger with age, is in the movie until suddenly dropped. And Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce and Clifton Collins Jr. are among the men who join our anti-hero Parker on at heist at the Ohio State Fair in the opening act only to double-cross him. The script gets mired in some real estate prospecting in Palm Beach, Florida that gets needlessly complicated. And there you have it, the movie squanders a pretty decent first hour.
Statham is an outlandish action figure that can sell an unlikely paradoxical character: a man that puts his street ethics before money. Statham wants the $200,000 he helped steal. No more, no less. He doesn’t need J. Lo as a bedroom partner because he already has Claire (Emma Booth, nude at least once). J. Lo, in need of a man and security, is – you can tell – on the brink of saying something really kinky to Parker when she has him in private quarters. Checking out J. Lo’s amazing body when she is ordered to strip for one scene is the only luck you will have though in that sex-sells department.
It’s not like our man Statham needs another chick anyway. I swear, these movies would be over by the second act of these criminal pros did what they said they were going to do. If you see it, can you say why with a straight face why Statham doesn’t just foil his adversaries before they go on their diamond robbery? It’s because the filmmakers think we need more scenes of him butting heads with additional bad guys brought up from the stock character warehouse. There’s a few people that will have you going, “Who is this?”
This potboiler keeps re-stirring the crime movie formula til you smell the stench of clichés. If you’re fans of Statham or J. Lo, they do a good enough performance job to make you care a little. But before you decide anything, look at that overbloated final running time.
118 Minutes. Rated R.
SUSPENSE-THRILLER / ACTION FANS / LATE NIGHT THRILLS
Film Cousins: “Point Blank” (1967); “The Long Good Friday” (1980, Britain); “Nadine” (1987); “The Bank Job” (2008).
