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83 out of 119 people found the following review useful:
Every other Jason Statham film ever made, 10 February 2013

Author: m-atanasoff from Bulgaria

Parker, a.k.a. "Every other Jason Statham film ever...but this time with a ten gallon". I won't be going in a detailed review, because if you've seen one Jason Statham flick you've seen every Jason Statham flick. Don't believe me? Here are some common trends I've noticed across his other films also present in this one: 1. Obligatory scene where he runs away from the hospital, minutes after waking up from being shot, beaten and/or mauled by a bear - check. 2. Semi-anonymous protagonist that is just a ridiculous badass for no apparent reason - check. 3. Whatever dubious activities he takes part in are explained to the viewer as honorable in a "everyone gets dirty" kind of way, because you know, JS has a code he adheres to and that automatically makes crime acceptable - check. 4. Women are magnetically compelled to his junk by his mere presence - check. Fast and fancy cars, because. (No I didn't forget the rest of the sentence) - check. 5.Walking around seemingly unfazed with broken appendages, ribs, collar bones, multiple gunshot wounds, knife stabbing wounds and/or bear mace - check.

All and all it's an okayish film, if you've never seen another Jason Statham flick before, but at this point it's just stupid to keep casting him in the same role, in the same film, over and over. It's obvious he's not a brilliant actor, but he has a lot more to offer than what is currently being churned out. Speaking of acting don't get me started on Jeniffer Lopez - her acting is just wince-inducing. Apparently the director thought the same and cast her in the film as a walking butt to centre shots around in the time Jason is off screen, presumably to make JS' male fans feel less awkward and have an excuse about having an erection throughout the movie, because we all know how unsure of themselves "bros" are.

It's a completely forgettable film you will probably regret paying actual real world money to see, because you will feel like you've seen this film at least 4 other times.

40 out of 61 people found the following review useful:
Statham Makes a Great Parker, 26 January 2013

Author: boblipton from New York City

As a fan of Donald Westlake's writing -- he did the Parker books under the pseudonym of Richard Stark -- I have long been bemused by the inability of film makers to adapt his work for the screen. Westlake wrote for the screen himself, and the Parker books are nothing but action and plot. Yes, there's character, but you figure it out from what Parker and his associates do.

With this, the fourth attempt to film a Parker novel, the film makers have found a practical if surprising choice for the title role. Jason Statham is not an actor of great oratorical powers, but he is a great physical actor, and he moves constantly like an angry tiger in a cage. The choice of a caper which is set largely in Palm Beach, with its artificial, pointless display of wealth and no other reason for existence is the perfect backdrop for the ferocity of Parker in his battle with Michael Chiklis' Melander; Jennifer Lopez' clueless Leslie, who gets caught up without understanding what is going on, gives the audience a good point of view.

Director Taylor Hackford is not a great director, but he is a highly competent one. Sixty years ago he would have been a major director for a studio, setting and working in the house style. Give him a story he can work with and he will hit all the notes, efficiently and effectively, and he has done so here. If the Parker of this movie is different from the Parker of the books, a bit more philosophical (although it comes down, in the end, to the tigerish "Do what I tell you and I will devour you last") we need to remember that a movie is not a book. This is not Donald Westlake's Parker, nor even the Parker I see when I read the books. However, it's still a very good one and worth your attention.

54 out of 90 people found the following review useful:
A 'must see' for Jason Statham fans..., 25 January 2013

Author: bmennen from New York City

Well, SURE, there are places where you must suspend disbelief (it's not THAT easy to steal a car, is it?), and SURE there are plot holes, and SURE there are times when you say to yourself "How did he know to go there?" BUT...this is one enjoyable movie!

The acting, the action scenes, and the eye candy (Statham for you XXs, and J-Lo for us XYs) are all great. Oh...and a word about J-Lo. While I've never been a great fan, the poor reviews she received made me curious. Well, she was excellent...and hot as a pistol. That woman has more sex appeal than 5 centerfolds. Patti Lupone plays her mom...very well, I might add.

Statham plays Parker and Parker-like characters in an intrinsically believable manner; that is, marginal characters who live on the edge of the law or beyond it (think "The Transporter" series) with an honorable streak. He slips into this part easily, and like his "Transporter" character, Parker seems little interested in sex. No...he has a singular purpose here as he has had in previous movies: get the job done, and no time for recreation. And once again, his singularity of purpose rings true.

There is, of course, violence, but we all have seen worse; my wife only had to look away twice, and she does not enjoy these types of movies, but goes to humor me (I agreed to see that dreadful "Moonrise Kingdom" after all). But she liked "Parker"--her direct quote was "It kept my interest"--and that was high praise for this kind of flick.

And as Tosh might say: "And for that, we thank you."

24 out of 34 people found the following review useful:
Statham Doing What He Does Best - Kick Ass, 5 February 2013

Author: revolution1991 from Canada

Many people say the same things about Jason Statham, He's a typecast or he doesn't do anything different. Which is partly true, but he is good as an action star and in my opinion hes a better actor than what some say. I don't think he does get enough credit seeing how he got into movies almost by accident.

Anyways Parker has a good revenge/crime story its about a professional thief who lives by a simple code, don't steal from people who can't afford it and don't hurt people who don't deserve it. After a successful heist our man is left for dead by his partners. The movie has good action throughout. lots of hand to hand combat, and violent ones at that. It also has a better than usual cast and director for a statham action movie (Good villains + hot leading lady).

Overall, I got what I was expecting for $10 as a fan of Jason Statham and would recommend it for a good popcorn flick.

7/10

12 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Crime thriller which keeps its schizophrenia under control, 15 March 2013

Author: Neil Welch from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Robber with morals Parker (Jason Statham), shot and left for dead, wants only to recover his share and teach people how to behave properly. Having tracked those who owe him money down to Palm Beach, he poses as a Texan businessman in order to get a real estate agent to help him identify the property they may be using as a base. He may not have reckoned with the real estate agent having her own agenda, and the crew who owe him money having high powered connections...

This crime caper movie starts off firing on all cylinders. It opens as a robbery gets under way and then stays in full action mode for the best part of an hour. Then Parker arrives in Palm Beach, encounters Jennifer Lopez's hard-up real estate agent, and something really weird happens. You can feel that, at this point, the film badly wants to become a comedy. It never does - it remains a violent, hard boiled crime thriller throughout, but there is always this strong urge for it to be something lighter and frothier whenever Lopez is around.

For all that, I enjoyed it especially given that it didn't always do what I expected it to. It was, as always, a mistake to get Statham to do accents - as well as a generic American accent, he is saddled with having to have a go at a Texan accent, and accordingly he wanders around all over the place - US tough guy, Texas, and (mostly) London, sometimes all in the same sentence. The action sequences are well staged (Statham exhibits powers of recovery on a par with Wolverine's healing factor), with one especially satisfying moment during a fight which produced an audible, "Oof!" from the cinema audience. Good fun, if a little odd in places.

17 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
Too long and predictable, but no flop, 12 April 2013

Author: Bene Cumb from Estonia

Of course, similar events - revenge after double-crossing - have been depicted several times and will definitely be depicted in the future as well - but it is the direction and choice of actors that counts. As for Parker, everything is at least okay with those: the director Taylor Hackford is an accredited creator and names like Jason Statham, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Lopez are certain signs of quality and non-boredom. They are pleasant to follow even in less interesting and less veracious scenes.

Well, the script is probably the weakest part of the movie: too much predictability, excessive sections (e.g. Parker-Claire, prolonging the duration to almost 2 hour 15 minutes) and trivial ending (unlike in movies by Guy Ritchie, for example).

Nevertheless, Parker is still an above-average A-movie, qualifying well for a sociable entertainment.

18 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
Vengeance seeking Statham propels this swell slice of pulp fiction, 6 February 2013

Author: george.schmidt (gpschmidt67@gmail.com) from fairview, nj

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

PARKER (2013) *** Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Nick Nolte, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins, Jr., Bobby Cannavale, Patti LuPone, Carlos Carrasco, Michah Hauptman, Emma Booth. Statham serves well as a revenge seeking crook with a code who is out for vengeance - and his slice of the pie - after a heist of double crosses leaves him for dead. High octane actioner with a swell ensemble and Lopez' best on screen role since "Out Of Sight" as the fly-in- the-ointment real estate agent that comes into Statham's plan-of-action-by default. Directed with gumption by vet Taylor Hackford and John C. McLaughlin's crackerjack adaptation of the late, great pulp fiction scribe Donald E. Weslake's novel "Flashfire" (under the Richard Stark pseudonym).

14 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
I really wanted to like it, 4 May 2013

Author: siderite from Romania

I wanted to like this movie so much, because I really think Jason Statham has some serious acting skills and he deserves some good scripts. Also the story is based on a book, so it should have been good.

Alas, it was not to be. And it has almost nothing to do with J-Lo being in the movie. The characters are bland, illogical in almost everything they do, even Parker, the Statham's character. Worst than that: they are unsympathetic. You have a lot of greedy people, some of them evil, some of them stupid, and apart from them is Parker, who is not greedy, just stupid. He puts everybody at risk for his own principles, he gets beat up and shot a few times and somehow he still walks. It's like Crank, but without anything fun in it.

I have to say I am a fan of Michael Chiklis, from Vegas, but his role was small and two dimensional. One dimensional, really, but I was going with the cardboard metaphor. You wanna know who was the most clear cut character, the one that did the job and was consistent? Daniel Bernhardt in the role of the Mafia killing machine.

So, bottom line: a waste of time and of good actors.

12 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Excellent action thriller!, 11 April 2013

Author: manusanchez90 from Spain

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"Parker" is a thriller made for the thrilling action movies fans and specially, for Jason Statham's fans. It is an enjoyable thriller full of action and violence. First, I must state that I did not read or know the novel it is based upon, so my review does not compare the book with the movie. "Parker" does not add anything really new, but it surely entertains and has some solid script and plot as well as a nice photography of Miami. Statham delivers a very good performance, but nothing different of what he always does. Jennifer Lopez worked very well in this movie, as well. The problem is that they work better when separated than when together. This means that they are both good actors who do a good job in "Parker", but they do not have any chemistry together, unlike Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", for example. The action scenes are rather realistic and very violent (specially one in which the protagonist is beated up by his own colleagues and another in the balcony of a hotel). The director Taylor Hackford has done a very good job because the movie amused movie during its entire length. Although the end is quite predictable, the movie contains some interesting twists. The cast is focused on both Jason and Jlo. The other actors simply did a fine job. In conclusion, this is a very recommendable movie, specially when you just feel like action, entertainment, a nice city to watch and attractive people like Jason Statham and Jlo. Do not expect anything very profound! 8

46 out of 87 people found the following review useful:
No one will expect much from a Jason Statham movie released in January, but "Parker" is still surprisingly disappointing., 24 January 2013

Author: GoneWithTheTwins from www.GoneWithTheTwins.com

"Parker" is quite the conundrum. It's not bizarre enough in visuals to be unique, nor is it edited flashily enough to be contemporary. It's not overly violent, exploitive, gratuitous, or edgy in any manner and the story is severely lacking creativity. The combination of Statham and Lopez is curious at best, but Statham doesn't rack up an impressive body count or engage in smartly choreographed warfare, while Lopez fails to be tough, intelligent, or genuinely sympathetic. Kicking off with the most generic of setups (borrowing heavily from Kubrick's "The Killing" and discernibly reminiscent of Mel Gibson's "Payback," itself adapted from the first Parker novel "The Hunter," whereas this feature is supposedly penned from the 19th book titled "Flashfire"), the film meanders through timid heist events until its anticlimactic, borderline documentary-like conclusion.

At the Ohio State Fair, Parker (Jason Statham) orchestrates a burglary of ticket sales that tiptoes past the one million dollar mark. He's aided by distraction man Hardwicke (Michah Hauptman), whose fire divertissement becomes deadly, and two gunmen posing as clowns (Clifton Collins Jr. as Ross and Michael Chiklis as Melander). A fifth accomplice, Carlson (Wendell Pierce), drives the getaway police vehicle. When Parker only wants his cut of the money, refusing to use the entire take as seed money for another, much more elaborate caper, the others shoot him and leave him for dead. Barely escaping with his life, Parker follows the foursome to West Palm Beach, Florida, where he enlists the help of real estate agent Leslie Rodgers (Jennifer Lopez) to aid in his various righting of wrongs. "It's the principle," insists Parker, when his longtime mentor Hurley (Nick Nolte) tries to convince him to let the whole thing go. "You wanna get yourself killed over principle?"

The character of Parker, as written by Richard Stark in more than twenty novels, somehow manages to be continually adapted in enervated ways (save for John Boorman's exceptional "Point Blank"). He's clearly no James Bond, instead stumbling into comical costumes for simple robberies (the scores are planned out in a method clearly devoid of screenwriter knowledge of "The Sting") and repetitive grand theft auto. He also possesses an archaic and conflicting code of ethics that forces him to thwart criminals as if he were Batman. The editing sports flashbacks that embarrassingly reexamine moments that occurred mere minutes beforehand – the most bewildering of which repeats a scene depicting Chiklis being villainous, as if audiences might forget which actor is the antagonist. There is some humor tied to the initial interactions, but this is quickly substituted for romantic drama of the painfully stifled kind.

This leads to Jennifer Lopez, whose character is introduced late in the film and for almost no reason at all. Parker is already pointlessly entangled with a love interest (the young blonde Claire, played by the forgettable but frequently nude Emma Booth), causing Leslie to appear desperate. She's pushing 40, divorced, in debt, broke, and lives with her mother. She tries to force herself on Parker, who promptly rejects her, creating a role that is swiftly pathetic, withering, foolish, and nearly suicidal. Thanks to a scene in which she willingly strips for him to prove she's not wearing a wire, she's also quite fit. Why would any accomplished, self-respecting woman want this part?

While Leslie is the most lamentable character in the screenplay, it's difficult to ignore the fact that almost every other persona is written to behave and react exactly how they shouldn't. Claire is unbelievably shrewd when it comes to circumventing a kidnapping attempt; Melander is always on the lookout, even when he wouldn't be anticipating an appearance by Parker, who in turn ponders over events he wasn't present for; Rodgers is impossibly brave when confronting vicious men from an underworld she's completely unaccustomed to; and gun and knife wounds seem to disappear just minutes after they've been acquired, certainly never getting in the way of physical combat (the most ludicrous is a brief but heavy-hitting scuffle in which the camera goes to great lengths to make the defeated appear catatonic at best – yet he strikes back with full, unfazed force seconds later as if he were Jason Voorhees). No one will expect much from a Jason Statham movie released in January, but "Parker" is still surprisingly disappointing.

- The Massie Twins (GoneWithTheTwins.com)

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