A movie in 100 words or less: Parker

I was kind of looking forward to Parker. For one thing, who doesn’t love a good heist flick? At least, as long as it’s moderately reasonable with respect to the “the job” in question. By which I mean that no one is attempting to pull a gold-plated car up the side of a skyscraper in New York City.  Because…ridiculous.

For another thing, who doesn’t love watching Jason Stratham be a tough guy? I mean, come on, the dude’s cool. If I had any hope of ever becoming the proverbial Tough Guy (quiet down, now, I can hear you laughing), I’d totally want to be the deadpan, sarcastic one he usually brings to the screen.

But I’m going to be honest with you, 3 minutes into this movie, I had some serious concerns. The damn thing jumps right in with what is theoretically the Ohio State Fair as the setting, and then throws in a few clowns for good measure. As we all know, my feelings about festivals (and fairs) and clowns has been well-documented (Pssst, the post link there is all about my dislike of festivals. Also, it’s titled “Clowns are awful too”).

In case you missed it, I’ll summarize it for you as quickly as I can: I don’t like festivals. I don’t like clowns.

So, Parker was digging a hole for itself right out of the gate. I mean, if you start with festivals and clowns, you damn well better be going somewhere, and you better get there fast.

The question, then, is, did it?

Parker

I’m ashamed to admit I can’t tell you what I think of Parker. I dozed off about the point in the movie where Statham and Jennifer Lopez’s characters formed an unlikely alliance (JLo? WTF?). Honestly, I couldn’t much bring myself to care what happened. I’m sure some stuff blew up, there were probably a lot of gun shots, and the thugs Statham was hunting for revenge surely got what they deserved. Meanwhile, I was all, [::snore SNORE snerk snore::]. Literally. The next day I was too meh about it to try again. Sorry. Maybe you’ll dig it?

So, um, there you have it. The worst, most shameful movie “review” of my entire (brief) career. I think we can all agree that this says a whole lot more about me than I said about the movie.

In summary, then:

Festivals? Bad.

Clowns? Bad.

Parker? Um, I dunno.

You might want to consider another source for more dependable and movie-related opinions.  I can happily make recommendations.

Pud’n