I've always been a Jason Statham fan. Some of my favorite adrenaline filled action flicks are Transporter 1 and 2 and Crank. I can't say that anything Jennifer Lopez has ever done has interested me, but she is far from another reason I gave this a shot. Nick Nolte, who I loved in Hotel Rawanda and Tropic Thunder is in this as well Wendell Pierce who was superb as Bunk on The Wire. I love a good action flick and I love the intrigue of a crime-thriller, like Parker is labeled as, but this is movie that suffers from one fatal flaw. It's terrible.
Parker follows the story of Parker (Jason Statham). A novel idea eh? Parker is a professional thief that is assigned by his mentor, Hurley (Nick Nolte), to do a job with four people: Melander (Michael Chiklis), Carlson (Wendell Pierce), Ross (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Kroll (Daniel Bernhardt). The job goes well expect for one part that doesn't go as Parker planned. He gets mad and wishes not to participate in a follow-up heist. The four shoot him and leave him for dead. A family driving by happens upon him and saves him. Parker escapes the hospital and tells Hurley that he's going to South Beach to get revenge of the four who did this to him. Parker travels to South Beach under an assumed alias of Daniel Parmett, a man from San Antonio, Texas. He meets Leslie Rodgers (Jennifer Lopez), a depressed, overworked and unsuccessful real estate agent. She is poor, going through a divorce and living with her mother. Leslie takes Parker around to look at houses, very happy at the prospect that she may finally get a commission. Leslie begins to become suspicious of Parker when she notices his interest in another one of her clients, Rodrigo. Rodrigo, who is really Melander, and the rest of his crew are planning a huge heist. Now it's up to Parker and an unlikely ally in Leslie, to get vengeance on this group of thieves.
This was a long watch that had almost no pay-off for me. Parker is nearly two hours and this is one of those movies where you want the end to come, but it seems like it never does. The story is fairly standard though. Nothing mind-blowing, simply there to facilitate the progress of the movie. Parker is man of principle. Things go awry and he gets angry. Something bad happens to him and he is set on vengeance until he gets it. A hot girl is thrown in the mix to "keep our attention"or something along those lines. Though in this movie, Leslie serves almost no purpose. Her being thrown in is beyond me and any scenes with her and/or her mother are almost completely pointless. From a character stand-point there's isn't much if any character development either, even with Parker. You get a glimpse of his past a few times and even some of Hurley's as well. But as a whole it just end up becoming a bunch of tough guys planning a heist while one wants revenge with a tag along girl.
Bringing me to the acting and action. The fight and heist scenes were done well, so there's one positive thing I can take about this movie. Jason Statham is probably one of the best action stars of the new generation. So the fighting and gun-play scenes come natural to him. Nick Nolte plays an okay role as his mentor as well. The rest of the thugs, so the speak, are mostly just there to be muscle and get the jobs done. Kinda sad since Michael Chiklis and Wendell Pierce are pretty good actors. Jennifer Lopez on the other hand is God-awful. There is nothing redeeming about her annoying character. Despite me not being fond if her work, it makes me wonder what people think they see in her as an actor. The dialogue aside from the opening scene with Statham is pretty bland and forgettable. Nothing anyone said stuck with me. The music was standard action stuff, the cinematography was nothing to get excited over and (like I said above) the plot and story are far below average at best. I can keep harping on the bad of this movie, but that's all this movie is.
Like you can probably tell, to me this movie has almost anything that should make anyone want to watch it. Lead, although a great action star, has a bland character to play. The rest of the good actors in this are forgettable, one dimensional characters. Finally the lead actress, is wholly annoying and pointless up until the very end. The plot, story and direction of Parker is a complete mess. If you HAVE to see the Statham action parts of this movie, look them up on YouTube or something and save yourself two hours. I really wish I could get my time back.
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