Parker and Let's Get Serious About Statham
The character has been portrayed many times on screen, most famously by Lee Marvin in Point Blank.
If I am honest I can't speak to their fandom or concerns as I have never read the books, I am, however, a fan of Point Blank and Mel Gibson's now, sadly, overlooked film Payback.
When it comes to Taylor Hackford's new take on the character though, I am there for one reason and one reason only and that is Jason Statham. I couldn't exactly or rightly pinpoint when exactly it was I became proudly gaytham for Statham (as my buddy Moe would say) but The Mechanic being a surprisingly good remake and the 1-2-3-4 mega punch of The Expendables, Killer Elite, Safe and The Expendables 2 certainly cemented me as a life long fan.
We'll get onto The Stath in a minute though, let's just quickly give Parker the once over. I will try, where I can, to not spoil anything.
As I did last week for The Last Stand, I caught the 10pm Thursday preview screening of Parker last night in a cinema with the wife, one other couple and a solitary man. A big turn out it was not, sadly.
The film tells the tale of a principled, pleasant enough thief who is double-crossed, left for dead and, of course, given no choice but to wreak long bloody but highly principled revenge.
I will say, up front, that this is not classic Statham. It falls into the not-as-good-as-Safe-but-better-than-Blitz territory, possibly a good double bill with the slightly similar themed Bank Job maybe.
What problems the film has, though, must be planted firmly at the feet of the director, Taylor Hackford and Jennifer Lopez. Parker walks a slightly similar path to Lopez's most successful screen outing, Out of Sight but where her character in that film shines with strength, sizzling sex appeal and satisfying sarcasm, in Parker, while she's putting the effort in, the part doesn't give her much to work with. Also, at a certain point, her character makes one of those decisions that film-characters do in order to heighten a tense scene and that grated ever so slightly with me.
The same can be said for the direction, where Out of Sight employed Soderbergh's usual bag of stylistic and artistic tricks to keep the slower parts of that film visually rich, Parker falters a little and can be just plain bland when it's concerned with character and plot rather than indulging in pleasing bouts of over-the-top, gory ultra-violence. It really needed to be Soderberghed up or to be made more gritty like a Get Carter, sadly, the cinematography at least, winds up being a little on the beige side.
That's about all in terms of niggles though.
Statham is as assured as ever and even a sequence which I was sure was going to be blatantly laughable, when the notoriously-not-very-good-at-accents Stath has to imitate a Texan, turned out to be fine and did the job well. The action is phenomenally well performed and there's lots of claret splashing all over the place, way more than I expected in fact.
To be fair to this film though, much like The Last Stand before it and I suspect Bullet To The Head (coming next week), it has been marketed all wrong. A better campaign would've linked it to slower paced yet strongly violent 70s fare. I know the books are set in the past and Statham's wish was to do it, like Killer Elite and The Bank Job, in the correct period but there wasn't any support for that from the producers. Instead I feel that, while the setting maybe contemporary, they have tried to imbue the film with the colder, slightly grittier feel of a 70s film. It isn't entirely succesful as I have said, it needed more interesting direction and a funky soundtrack but on a second or third viewing I definitely see this growing on me.
Unlike The Last Stand I am not sure this is necessarily going to please hardcore action fans, as there are long sections where nary a nose is broken or a knee dislocated with the butt of a shotgun, and I can't imagine it's the Parker film all the fans of the novels have been waiting for either but for us Stathamites it's a chance to once again bask in the bullet headed Brit's brilliant screen presence as he defies expectations again and tries something a little different.
While James Bond may have run 50 years, having a muscle bound English action hero is something of an extreme rarity. Yes there was Gary Daniels before him and Scott Adkins fast on his heals but both seem to stay firmly in the realms of the straight-to-video world, at least for now. I am not sure I could think of another Englishman who has achieved what Statham has and I am genuinely surprised how often that goes un-noticed on both sides of the pond. Also I am genuinely surprised how often our beloved Stath is dismissed as being one note, always making the same film, not being a good actor or only doing films in which he takes off his shirt.
It's perfectly true to say that Statham makes films within similar genres and it would also be true to say that he is aware that there are certain things expected of him when he makes a film: shirts off for the ladies, a fight scene for the lads and a couple of cheesy one liners but there is definitely more to the cult of Stath than this paltry check list of genre cliches.
Some may have wondered, back in 2010 when they went to see The Expendables, who is this gruff voiced, cockney Bruce Willis sitting next to Stallone in the cockpit of this plane? and others may have wondered that with talent and bigger names like Lundgren, Li and Rourke in the film, what was Jason Statham, a relative young upstart, doing playing Sylvester Stallone's right hand man? but when you examine what Statham has done with his career it doesn't remain a mystery very long.
It also shows that Stallone is an astute observer of talent and the industry as well as a consummate professional film-maker of the highest order.
First of all, due to his love of Bruce Lee and Stallone movies, Jason Statham was dedicated to doing things, as much as he could, for real. He trained and studied martial arts and in his Transporter and Crank series he does almost every single physical stunt seen on screen.
Secondly, much like Stallone and Willis, while aware of his little niche in the industry or 'pigeon hole' if you like, he has tried, wherever possible to make different and interesting choices.
Sometimes the impetus behind the decisions maybe obvious things like working with first time, maverick, guerilla style film-makers on the Crank series or starring in a period heist flick written by two veteran British comedy TV writers and sometimes his reasoning for taking a project might be subtle to the outsider but, gathering what I can from interviews, Statham carefully picks his film roles based on either cast members, director, script or the chance to do something he's not done before.
Now before you say 'wait a minute, isn't that what everyone does? why is that special?' think about how easy it would be for Statham to currently be making The Transporter 7 right now, or Crank 5 or think about how instead of doing a straight to DVD 80s style action film we've seen a million times he chose to take a true-ish spy story with ambiguous characters and make a big-ish budget action film set in drab early 80s Britain with Robert DeNiro and Clive Owen.
I don't care what you say that shows someone who is striving to make things as interesting and as different as possible.
The other thing to note is that what is also rare these days and wonderful to see, is how the industry has allowed him to do it. His box office has not always been strong and yet he continues to get so much funding for different projects that the man can remain as prolific, hard working and challenged as he wants to. Yeah there might be misses, for some audiences the majority of his stuff might not interest them in the slightest but at least he is being given the opportunity to chase a variety of projects because from that model you always get a few cast iron classics. Safe showed him to have some surprising depth in his performance and like Stallone had his Rambo breakdown in First Blood, Rocky's simple but earnest underdog character and his fantastic nuanced performance in Copland, so too will Statham get his chance. I hope.
So while Parker had bits I loved and bits I didn't, it defied my expectations again by simply not being just-another-action-film (not that it would've been bad if it was either) but having a script just as interested with characters and plot as it was with blood spewing fight scenes. It's just a shame it didn't have a director good enough to 100% pull it off.
3.5 out of 5
Double Bill - The Transporter & Kiss of the Dragon - 20th August 2010
Well, after the wonder that was The Expendables (read my review below if you haven't already), whilst browsing through the DVD section or our local retailer we came across this DVD double bill from two of the stars. I had heard good things about The Transporter but never got round to seeing it and Kiss of the Dragon I had seen before and liked but not in a long time. I have to say that despite being a big fan of action, b movies and straight to DVD fair, I haven't seen and I don't own many examples of it. I would like that to change though because really it's obviously where all the fun is being had. The action films I have mainly seen tend to belong to Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Wilis and of course I had come across Van Damme, Segal and even Norris in the past. Since websites like Hulu and Crackle have been set up I have been able to watch a few more of these types of films along with more Eastern fair with Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat. I am aware there is still a ton I need to learn on the subject and hopefully I can make this a goal for the future.
Now, to the films in hand. We watched the films as a double bill and first up was The Transporter, which I really enjoyed. The action, in particular, seemed inventive and varied, the plot, and this is usual in this sought of hokum, seemed particularly but gloriously contrived and the production values were pretty amazing considering the modest budget. They even quite effectively blow up a lighthouse in one ridiculous but fantastic scene.
Jason Statham, despite is beginnings with Guy Ritchie (who is not my favourite person) is incredibly watchable and a tremendous fighter, I am just not sure what accent he is doing in this film. The few long periods of talking he does have it seems to veer all over the place from cockney, American, Australian via Irish and back again. Considering his back story is not explored hugely does it matter? They should've had him talking normally. The other stand out member of the cast is the police officer played by François Berléand, who is splendidly French in everything he does and a surprisingly welcome all for our hero. The woman is annoying though and you don't fully buy their romance or her story but that's fine, for these sorts of things we suspended disbelief. Overall I really liked this movie and will definitely watch Transporter 2.
Luc Besson has been churning these little France based action flicks out for some time (more recently Taken and From Paris with Love) and all of them seem to be just tremendous fun, the one thing you have to sort of tune out is the soundtrack. The soundtrack for The Transporter is abysmal and Kiss of the Dragon is not much of an improvement.
So that leads us, quite nicely if I do say so my damn self, to Kiss of the Dragon. Out of the two movies I still preferred this one but not by a huge margin (and I think that's mostly to do with how bad the soundtrack was to The Transporter). Again the plot is pretty ludicrous but it's nice to see all the chop socky action play out with Paris as a back drop and despite not having much to really do but play your typical prostitute with a heart of gold in distress, it's always nice to see Bridget Fonda in something.
It's also incredible that in a French produced movie there is not really one nice French person in it, they are all scumbags. The lead scumbag of course coming in the form of the gloriously over-the-top, Gary-Oldman-in-Leonesque Inspector Richard. His tremendously craggy face, like an Easter Island head come alive, dripping with every ounce of venom and malice he can muster. Also, it is wonderful to see Burt Kwouk in this film. The action, of course, is first rate and Jet Li is a captivating screen presence. The video game/Enter the Dragon ending where he must face one foe after another, each more menacing and hard to beat than the last, is terrific and features an entire room of karate black belts and some enormously muscular, white haired twins.
The reliance on his magic little acupuncture pins may seem a little far fetched for some but, I think, anything like that just has to be accepted and gone along with.
So while neither of these would ever make my list of top 10 action movies of all time (a list I have yet to compile actually but I will one day) they are both really enjoyable; throw away yes but well worth a look, or a second look.
The Transporter - 7 out of 10 cups of coffee
Kiss of the Dragon - 7 out of 10 cups of coffee
Points from The Misses:
The Transporter - 6 out of 10 cups of coffee
Kiss of the Dragon - 8 out of 10 cups of coffee
The Expendables - 14th August 2010
The night I saw this film started with The Expendables, ended with a midnight screening of The Blues Brothers and wedged between these two fantastic yet fairly different films was a trip to Lombardi's for some of the best calzones I have ever had. To describe this as a perfect night would be an understatement.
Not sure I had grinned that much in a long time.
I think it was at the point when Sly Stallone, flying an enormous cargo plane with front mounted machine guns and Jason Statham, controlling those guns, his little bald dome, complete with shades, sticking ludicrously out of a hatch in the nose of the plane took out the entire port of a small South American island in an eruption of flames, noise and manly air punches that The Expendables instantly became my film of 2010 and that wasn't more than about 20 minutes into the movie.There aren't enough joyous swearwords in the world to exclaim how BRILLIANT this film is. Yes, ok, so the film looks like what might happen after a severe accident at a plastic surgery clinic, run by a seriously deranged ex-wrestler, if they suddenly gave all their patients ridiculously enormous artillery and despatched them to the Gulf of Mexico but that is entirely part of the exuberant joy of this movie!Plus Mickey Rourke does more acting with a clay pipe and his hideously deformed lips than De Niro has managed in a decade.
The Expendables is seriously the sort of film that I miss because they hardly ever make them like this any more. It was so refreshing too. Apart from the odd guilty pleasure like Taken, I feel like I haven't seen a seriously good action movie since maybe Kill Bill 1 and even that was over hyped. Superhero movies don't count, I'm sorry, I know they have action in them but they also have ridiculous, over-the-top angst engulfed, soap operatic, preachy stretches about the nature of humanity and all that whiny, emotional plodding about. That's not to say The Expendables doesn't have character development, it does, more, dare I say it, than Inception or Avatar but it is done by the people involved actually acting their characters (which is a novel idea) and in fact the only person who says more than a handful of comically mumbled one liners is Mickey Rourke and it's a genuinely affecting and awesome scene.
On a quick side note, considering they are based on 'comic' books it's litteraly amazing how seriously most comic book movies take themselves. Mind-blowingly staggering now that I think about it. This is not a crime that The Expendables can be accused of as every line visibly drips and reeks of tongue-in-cheek, lads-own adventure tomfoolery and a healthy sense of irony dashed with a yearning for former glory days.
But enough of all that analytical mumbo jumbo, what about the violence and the action I hear you cry! Well it is some of the most inventive, frantic, exciting, funny, fantastically over the top and watchable violence possibly of all time.
Made me realise just how atrocious other movies are in general at the moment and also made me realise just how god awful Tarantino is these days.The action and dialogue in this was better than Inglorious Basterds and the car chase better than 50 Death Proofs combined. (I honestly can't believe Kurt Russell turned this down! his agents should be dragged out to a field and beaten to death with a frozen chicken for not thrusting this into his hand and screaming 'Do this now or never eat lunch in this town again!')I stick this film in with the likes of Rambo 3, Cobra & Tango & Cash as some of the most enjoyable Stallone has EVER been. It doesn't have the classic stature of a Rocky or a First Blood but it doesn't aim for that. This is a classic of a different kind, one that, like Taken, I will get out and watch time and time again to feel good and have a blast.
Now about the cast, it is a bit of a hodge podge of old action stars, Stallones old fast food buddies and ex-wrestlers all of whom are fine, if not occasionally underused. Thinking about this film again (and reading about Kurt Russel declining to be a part of it) there are any number of other people that some may have on their wish list for a man-fest such as this. Bruce Campbell, Fred Williamson, Kurt Russell, Keith David, Steven Segal and Van Damme would be some of mine, with a Charlie Sheen cameo because, well, every film needs a Charlie Sheen cameo. (who would you pick??)I think, considering the sheer size of the cast (both in number and bi-cep size) I actually feel Stallone did a good job of giving each of them their moment to shine. Yes, some had a shorter time to shine than others but as ensemble movies go I didn't feel short changed by any of them. My big applause goes out to Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham and Eric Roberts as particularly good in their roles.I have been racking my noggin trying to see if there was anything about this film that I didn't like and apart from the fact that he used the same song twice on the soundtrack, when there are any number of heavy country rock anthems he could have used, I don't think there was. It is going to take some special film to knock this off my top spot for the year and the year is almost over. I am so glad it's doing really well at the box office, it shows, more than Inceptions success shows, that people are sick of the same old child-friendly, spoon-feeding bilge that we've been showered in lately.Bring on The Expendables Two: Mission to Moscow!!
10 out of 10 freshly squeezed orange juices
Points from the Misses - 9 out of 10 freshly squeezed orange juices
The night I saw this film started with The Expendables, ended with a midnight screening of The Blues Brothers and wedged between these two fantastic yet fairly different films was a trip to Lombardi's for some of the best calzones I have ever had. To describe this as a perfect night would be an understatement.
Not sure I had grinned that much in a long time.
I think it was at the point when Sly Stallone, flying an enormous cargo plane with front mounted machine guns and Jason Statham, controlling those guns, his little bald dome, complete with shades, sticking ludicrously out of a hatch in the nose of the plane took out the entire port of a small South American island in an eruption of flames, noise and manly air punches that The Expendables instantly became my film of 2010 and that wasn't more than about 20 minutes into the movie.There aren't enough joyous swearwords in the world to exclaim how BRILLIANT this film is. Yes, ok, so the film looks like what might happen after a severe accident at a plastic surgery clinic, run by a seriously deranged ex-wrestler, if they suddenly gave all their patients ridiculously enormous artillery and despatched them to the Gulf of Mexico but that is entirely part of the exuberant joy of this movie!Plus Mickey Rourke does more acting with a clay pipe and his hideously deformed lips than De Niro has managed in a decade.
The Expendables is seriously the sort of film that I miss because they hardly ever make them like this any more. It was so refreshing too. Apart from the odd guilty pleasure like Taken, I feel like I haven't seen a seriously good action movie since maybe Kill Bill 1 and even that was over hyped. Superhero movies don't count, I'm sorry, I know they have action in them but they also have ridiculous, over-the-top angst engulfed, soap operatic, preachy stretches about the nature of humanity and all that whiny, emotional plodding about. That's not to say The Expendables doesn't have character development, it does, more, dare I say it, than Inception or Avatar but it is done by the people involved actually acting their characters (which is a novel idea) and in fact the only person who says more than a handful of comically mumbled one liners is Mickey Rourke and it's a genuinely affecting and awesome scene.
On a quick side note, considering they are based on 'comic' books it's litteraly amazing how seriously most comic book movies take themselves. Mind-blowingly staggering now that I think about it. This is not a crime that The Expendables can be accused of as every line visibly drips and reeks of tongue-in-cheek, lads-own adventure tomfoolery and a healthy sense of irony dashed with a yearning for former glory days.
But enough of all that analytical mumbo jumbo, what about the violence and the action I hear you cry! Well it is some of the most inventive, frantic, exciting, funny, fantastically over the top and watchable violence possibly of all time.
Made me realise just how atrocious other movies are in general at the moment and also made me realise just how god awful Tarantino is these days.The action and dialogue in this was better than Inglorious Basterds and the car chase better than 50 Death Proofs combined. (I honestly can't believe Kurt Russell turned this down! his agents should be dragged out to a field and beaten to death with a frozen chicken for not thrusting this into his hand and screaming 'Do this now or never eat lunch in this town again!')I stick this film in with the likes of Rambo 3, Cobra & Tango & Cash as some of the most enjoyable Stallone has EVER been. It doesn't have the classic stature of a Rocky or a First Blood but it doesn't aim for that. This is a classic of a different kind, one that, like Taken, I will get out and watch time and time again to feel good and have a blast.
Now about the cast, it is a bit of a hodge podge of old action stars, Stallones old fast food buddies and ex-wrestlers all of whom are fine, if not occasionally underused. Thinking about this film again (and reading about Kurt Russel declining to be a part of it) there are any number of other people that some may have on their wish list for a man-fest such as this. Bruce Campbell, Fred Williamson, Kurt Russell, Keith David, Steven Segal and Van Damme would be some of mine, with a Charlie Sheen cameo because, well, every film needs a Charlie Sheen cameo. (who would you pick??)I think, considering the sheer size of the cast (both in number and bi-cep size) I actually feel Stallone did a good job of giving each of them their moment to shine. Yes, some had a shorter time to shine than others but as ensemble movies go I didn't feel short changed by any of them. My big applause goes out to Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham and Eric Roberts as particularly good in their roles.I have been racking my noggin trying to see if there was anything about this film that I didn't like and apart from the fact that he used the same song twice on the soundtrack, when there are any number of heavy country rock anthems he could have used, I don't think there was. It is going to take some special film to knock this off my top spot for the year and the year is almost over. I am so glad it's doing really well at the box office, it shows, more than Inceptions success shows, that people are sick of the same old child-friendly, spoon-feeding bilge that we've been showered in lately.Bring on The Expendables Two: Mission to Moscow!!
10 out of 10 freshly squeezed orange juices
Points from the Misses - 9 out of 10 freshly squeezed orange juices
The night I saw this film started with The Expendables, ended with a midnight screening of The Blues Brothers and wedged between these two fantastic yet fairly different films was a trip to Lombardi's for some of the best calzones I have ever had. To describe this as a perfect night would be an understatement.
Not sure I had grinned that much in a long time.
I think it was at the point when Sly Stallone, flying an enormous cargo plane with front mounted machine guns and Jason Statham, controlling those guns, his little bald dome, complete with shades, sticking ludicrously out of a hatch in the nose of the plane took out the entire port of a small South American island in an eruption of flames, noise and manly air punches that The Expendables instantly became my film of 2010 and that wasn't more than about 20 minutes into the movie.
There aren't enough joyous swearwords in the world to exclaim how BRILLIANT this film is.
Yes, ok, so the film looks like what might happen after a severe accident at a plastic surgery clinic, run by a seriously deranged ex-wrestler, if they suddenly gave all their patients ridiculously enormous artillery and despatched them to the Gulf of Mexico but that is entirely part of the exuberant joy of this movie!
Plus Mickey Rourke does more acting with a clay pipe and his hideously deformed lips than De Niro has managed in a decade.
The Expendables is seriously the sort of film that I miss because they hardly ever make them like this any more. It was so refreshing too. Apart from the odd guilty pleasure like Taken, I feel like I haven't seen a seriously good action movie since maybe Kill Bill 1 and even that was over hyped. Superhero movies don't count, I'm sorry, I know they have action in them but they also have ridiculous, over-the-top angst engulfed, soap operatic, preachy stretches about the nature of humanity and all that whiny, emotional plodding about. That's not to say The Expendables doesn't have character development, it does, more, dare I say it, than Inception or Avatar but it is done by the people involved actually acting their characters (which is a novel idea) and in fact the only person who says more than a handful of comically mumbled one liners is Mickey Rourke and it's a genuinely affecting and awesome scene.
On a quick side note, considering they are based on 'comic' books it's litteraly amazing how seriously most comic book movies take themselves. Mind-blowingly staggering now that I think about it. This is not a crime that The Expendables can be accused of as every line visibly drips and reeks of tongue-in-cheek, lads-own adventure tomfoolery and a healthy sense of irony dashed with a yearning for former glory days.
But enough of all that analytical mumbo jumbo, what about the violence and the action I hear you cry! Well it is some of the most inventive, frantic, exciting, funny, fantastically over the top and watchable violence possibly of all time.
Made me realise just how atrocious other movies are in general at the moment and also made me realise just how god awful Tarantino is these days.
The action and dialogue in this was better than Inglorious Basterds and the car chase better than 50 Death Proofs combined.
(I honestly can't believe Kurt Russell turned this down! his agents should be dragged out to a field and beaten to death with a frozen chicken for not thrusting this into his hand and screaming 'Do this now or never eat lunch in this town again!')
I stick this film in with the likes of Rambo 3, Cobra & Tango & Cash as some of the most enjoyable Stallone has EVER been. It doesn't have the classic stature of a Rocky or a First Blood but it doesn't aim for that. This is a classic of a different kind, one that, like Taken, I will get out and watch time and time again to feel good and have a blast.
Now about the cast, it is a bit of a hodge podge of old action stars, Stallones old fast food buddies and ex-wrestlers all of whom are fine, if not occasionally underused. Thinking about this film again (and reading about Kurt Russel declining to be a part of it) there are any number of other people that some may have on their wish list for a man-fest such as this. Bruce Campbell, Fred Williamson, Kurt Russell, Keith David, Steven Segal and Van Damme would be some of mine, with a Charlie Sheen cameo because, well, every film needs a Charlie Sheen cameo. (who would you pick??)
I think, considering the sheer size of the cast (both in number and bi-cep size) I actually feel Stallone did a good job of giving each of them their moment to shine. Yes, some had a shorter time to shine than others but as ensemble movies go I didn't feel short changed by any of them. My big applause goes out to Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham and Eric Roberts as particularly good in their roles.
I have been racking my noggin trying to see if there was anything about this film that I didn't like and apart from the fact that he used the same song twice on the soundtrack, when there are any number of heavy country rock anthems he could have used, I don't think there was. It is going to take some special film to knock this off my top spot for the year and the year is almost over. I am so glad it's doing really well at the box office, it shows, more than Inceptions success shows, that people are sick of the same old child-friendly, spoon-feeding bilge that we've been showered in lately.
Bring on The Expendables Two: Mission to Moscow!!
10 out of 10 freshly squeezed orange juices
Points from the Misses - 9 out of 10 freshly squeezed orange juices
Points from the Misses - 9 out of 10 freshly squeezed orange juices