Play Dirty Parent Guide

Master thief Parker (Mark Wahlberg) is left reeling after a successful heist takes a turn when a member of his crew, Zen (Rosa Salazar), betrays everyone, leaving them for dead. Ready for revenge, Parker tracks her down only to learn that she’s planning an even bigger heist, one that would pull her country out of poverty. Her plan is to steal from a crooked dictator, who plans to steal the treasure for himself first.

With a promise of a payout in the hundreds of millions, Parker agrees to help, but only if he can bring on his own crew, including Grofield (LaKeith Stanfield), a theatre owner and actor who steals to fund his passion for the performing arts. But as the crew work on their heist plan, they soon realize that this is no ordinary job, and they’re not the only crew with an interest in the job.

Have you ever had a boring day at work where you keep checking the clock and only two minutes have passed even though it feels like hours? That’s what watching this film felt like. I feel like I spent my entire day watching it and yet somehow every time I checked the remaining runtime there was still always an hour left. Perhaps Shane Black has moved from filmmaking into experimenting with time dilation? I hope so because then I’d feel better about wasting my time in the name of science rathe than for the sake of self-indulgent filmmaking.

I love a heist, and there are glimmers of a fantastic caper in here somewhere. There are a few incredibly creative action sequences, and some of the heist itself is fun, but it’s so deeply buried under innumerable layers of storyline that everything blurs into an incomprehensible mess. In my opinion, Mark Wahlberg has never been a good actor, and it blows my mind that he still gets work in the first place. He was absolutely the wrong choice for this role, and his lack of skill or chemistry kills the film before it even has a chance to start. With a more adept leading man perhaps this complete mess of a script could have at least been interesting, but instead it’s just Wahlberg staring blankly while his co-stars act circles around him.

There’s a distinct sense that the writers assumed they could hide the script’s unfunny convoluted mess if they buried it beneath extreme amounts of negative content. There’s an excessive use of f-bombs (at 145), as well as a smattering of nudity, and a prolonged scene of drunk driving that results in injury and property damage that is played off as humorous. Another thing that struck me was the excessive level of collateral damage. It’s not shown for emotional effect, it’s just shown for the heck of it, and it is notable for how blatant it is, compared to a lot of other action flicks that just pretend it doesn’t happen.

I can’t say that Play Dirty is completely horrible since it has a few good points, including fun side characters, clever heist plans, and some interesting action, but none of that makes up for the inexcusable runtime, convoluted story, and miscast lead. The most amazing thing Shane Black did here was manage to trick us into thinking that this film is only two hours long, when I swear it has to be at least five.