Movie Review: PARKER

I'm forcing myself to write movie reviews for all movies that I see from now on, so be prepared for a lot of content coming through of this type.  I figured this is the only way I'll get better at writing movie reviews, but also a good way to talk about more movies than just the ones we talk about on the podcast.



My first movie review is of the movie Parker, which came out in January in movie theaters but just came out this past Tuesday on Blu-Ray/DVD.  Parker stars Jason Statham as Parker, who is just another version of Chev Chelios, Lee Christmas, Frank Martin, or the guy in The Mechanic, so basically it's Statham being Statham.  Parker is your anti-hero who helps a band of thieves, including one of my favorites Michael Chiklis, put together by Nick Nolte pull off a heist.  While on the way back from pulling off this heist, they start planning their next operation, this time with much higher stakes and a much bigger payout.  Parker is uncomfortable with this and his heist mates sense his disapproval and leave him for dead on the side of the road.  Parker obviously recovers from these attacks and goes to the location of the next robbery in order to get revenge on his former crew. Oh yeah, and Jennifer Lopez shows up too, mostly as a marketing ploy to try to get a female audience interested in what is very much a typical Jason Statham movie, which are usually targeted pretty predominately towards men.  Parker is directed by Taylor Hackford, who probably most recently famous for directing the Ray Charles biopic Ray, and also thrillers The Devil's Advocate and Proof of Life.

Overall, this movie was alright.  It truly is what you expect it to be, nothing more, nothing less.  If the Alice Eve underwear scene in Star Trek Into Darkness, that has been much talked about this week, was gratuitous there's an equally gratuitous scene with Jennifer Lopez stripping down to her skivvies so Parker can check her for a wire (or mostly so we can see J-Lo's bodacious bod).  The one thing you expect from Statham is some cool action scenes and witty one-liners which are largely absent from the movie, while there is some action it's mostly short-lived.  While the story was a little slow to develop and for the most part unoriginal, it was still good enough to be entertaining even while being predictable.  Considering the crop of videos available to rent this past month, you could spend your evenings in much worse way.

Raitng: 2.5 out of 5