Play Dirty (2025)

`There are two kinds of people in this world, those who know who Shane Black is, and those who don't!. Those can dig ;) 

NALD 

Well Shane Black is back as a writer/director, this time on Amazon Prime & theirs MGM  100 mill. $ streaming extravaganza.

It's a Parker film named Play Dirty (not to be confused with the 1969 André De TothWW2 actioner, the title comes from Black's unfilmed script for Lethal Weapon 2, unseen til today -Black's most proud and gritty work, or so they say ;).

It's based on the Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake) iconic novels started in the 60's. Not one novel but `novels`. I guess they're trying to build  a franchise but this won't happen I guess cos' the film is the weakest of Black's career as a director (and that includes the reshot troubled 2018's The Predator). 

Mark Wahlberg is Parker, an obnoxious choice. He can't handle the character dark charisma and dry wit, a dangerous man with a code of its own. Stark's Parker is an Anti Hero, Steve Mc Queen would have done him justice. Or Kris Kristofferson. Even today's Brad Pitt cos' Russell Crowe's too overweight...

Robert Downey Jr. was supposed to play him but he backed off, remaining on board as a producer. Not sure even about Downey but definetly a better choice, Parker's before were Lee Marvin (Point Blank-1967- the most menacing), Jim Brown (The Split-1978, the black one), Robert Duvall (The Outfit-1973, the most aloof), Peter Coyote (Slayground-1983, the most unlikely), Mel Gibson (Payback-1999, the  coolest, but meanest to his director-check out only the Director's Cut), Jason Statham (Parker-2013, bleh..). I'm not adding two these the two Frenchie freejazzin', Made in USA (Jean Luc Godard, 1966) and Mise à Sac (Alan Cavalier, 1967).

*** (Here's an article on all the Parker films, and none until 2013 used the name Parker !!!)

Back to Play Dirty. Would've been better to play it cool tho. The film itself is a self indulgent mess, combo of action scenes, comedy and VFX gone awry.

Too many characters, too much useless plot, not a lot of chemistry between the actors. Rapper LaKeith Stanfield shines as Grofield, Stark's character that has his own novels. Would've liked more of the Thomas Jane character, and someone else for Tony Shaloub, the guy plays a caricature of the mob boss of  a ridiculous corny and cartoonish Outfit. Think a James Coburn, even in Hudson Hawk or  Kris Kristofferson (he was the boss of The Outfit in Payback, but not in the Director's Cut !!!).  Also for the Latin country (unanamed but it's Peru), some finer actors, plus Rosa Salazar as Zen is kinda unmemobrable and not at all a Femme Fatale type.

The running time (2h03) is overlong and the film loses steam in midstream.

+++The Plus:

Great score by Alan Silvestri, reminionscent of those he did for Predator and The Long Kiss Goodnight (based on Shane's script), jazzy and funk, dramatic and menacing where it needs to be. For me Silvestri's score is a great comeback to form. A bit of  007 Bond-sist swagger, Lalo Schifrin and The Taking of Pelham 123 by David Shire, the percussion points.

Also the opening credits are very cool, 60's like. They were made by Daniel Kleinman who did all the title sequences for James Bond starting with GoldenEye back in 1995. Amazingly he is not credited with imdb and Anca found this for me, thanx ! Her piece on the art of the opening credits is here. 

And here's the whole title sequence. 

Production values-high -especially the first action scene at the racing track.

The cinematography (superb 2.39:) by legendary Phillipe Rousselot (he's 80 now!), a lot of shades, shadows, reflections, in a NYC shot this time in Sydney, Australia !!!! Rousselot and Black worked together before in 2026's The Nice Guys.

Some of the wisecracks work better than the plotholes and the action. Also there are many references to Black's scripts and films, from the Christmas setting (Duh !) Lethal Weapon (the fall from the rooftop), The Long Kiss Goodnight (the House of Gretchen Mol, the chase in the snow, the scene by the water), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys, etc. Liked the Mark Cuban pun ;)

Shane Black's influences on this one are great films, from Bullit to Dirty Harry, Marathon Man to the obscure Hickey & Boggs (1972), you can check the interview here on Letterboxed. 

And another interview, exhaustive in Collider, with Black, executive producer Susan Downey and producer Jules Daly (also video). 

6 (out of 10) for fans of SB and Donald Westlake, otherwise a Fiver. 

2 1/2 to 3 out of 5.

Would've been way cooler 2 see it in a Cinema....

RIP Remo Girone

C'hiera una volta in Italy...just visited Atrani where Equalizer 3 (and Ripley) were shot and remembered that Tano Carridi was in it...aka il signore Remo Girone. Next morning I saw on the scroll on Italian Television that he died in Monte Carlo, where he lived. He was 76. The odds to be next to one of his and most iconic last filming places ? Locals we met remembered him with respect, amazed we know Tano so well. La Piovra is still Legend in bella Italia. And in Romania too. 

Girone was one of my favorite actors after seeing him in La Piovra series on Romanian Television back in 1992. We were students but we got together on Saturday nights to watch it and Girone as Tano Carridi was the most suave dark angel, a villain of cosmic (or should we say Hellish) proportions. With his perfect hairline, impeccable suits  and a quiet voice, he was always filmed in dark shadows, like the Devil incarnate. Later on I saw him in some films but somehow his third career act  came from Hollywood films: Live By Night, Ford vV. Ferrari where he played Enzo Ferrari, and Equalizer 3, as a good doctor helping Denzel. 

`Il caricato e arrivato a Praga`.

One Battle After Another (2025)

"Snap Crackle Pop"

French 75 resurges for one last call...Do you remeber the code ? "What time is it?" / It's Time for REVOlution (again ?)

One Battle After Another is Paul Thomas Anderson's biggest film to date (you dpon't wanna know the budget, out of which a quarter is Leo's salary..). Most expected and already lauded as film of the year. Sean Penn is in for an Oscar nod surely-best supposting. Di Caprio does a OUIH bit imo. He's like Rick Dalton playing the fried brains revolutionary recluse Bob Ferguson aka Ghetto" Pat. Benicio Del Toro is also superfunny as the Sensei, shades of him in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas...but Sean Penn's performance as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw is surreal. One for the books !

Chase Infiniti's big screen debut as Bob and Perfidia's daughter Willa is intense. Special mention to Eric Schweig as Avanti. 

Plus the Christmas Adventurers Club, man, kudos for this one off ;)

I'd call this No Country For Any One...

It's a relentless ride, shot beautifully on 35 mm film in VistaVision (second film in this format in this century, after The Brutlalist), by Michael Bauman (his second film with PTA after Licorice Pizza), his first feature credit ! 

The film should be read through his soundtrack -I mean the overall score, again by Jonny Greenwood, his faithfull composer, this time a psychotronic overpulsating paroxistic one. I expect his Oscar next March.

The soundtrack includes great songs, from Steely Dan (Dirty Work), to Jackson Five (Ready Or Not Here I Come), Tom Petty's American Girl on the end credits (you will know why, "she was raised with Promises"), Ella Fitzgerald and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, thge classic and still subversive Gil Scott-Heron proto-rap from 1970, which plays a role also in the plot. 

Thomas Pynchon's book Vineland (1990) was the inspiration of PTA, who did a crazy looney tones political bonanza. Reminde me a lot of Eddington. It's somehow PTA's funniest film to date. Some bits reminiscent of the weed haze of Inherent Vice, his adaptation of Pynchon's other counterculture book.

There is also a big connection (and inspiration) with Gillo Pontecorvo's revolutionary classic Batle of Algiers (1966). 

Epic duration, 2h41, but it goes fast, on this one I would've liked to be even longer, more Christmas Adventureres,  Billy Goat, Beegee, Comrade Josh and Talleyrand.

The film is dedicated to Adam Somner, the legendary second unit director (Gladiator, Phantom Thread) and producer of 5 of PTA's films from There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice, Licorice Piza to this last, OBATA. Somner died last year in November after completing this film...

4 out of 5, 8 out of 10 !!!

*Defintely it's a film that you can revisit, plus very TODAY in the actual political climate. 

RIP Claudia Cardinale

 Claudia Cardinale...born in Tunis, died in France...Icon of Italian and International Cinema, beauty and elegance. 

The princess from The Pink Panther. a princess in Il Gatopardo, 

8 1/2, Rocco e sui fratelli, Fitzcarraldo. Fellini, Visconti, Herzog.

Great part in Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, the only woman persona in his westerns.

She was honored at TIFF Cluj in 2009...

                                                              (15.04.2025-23.10.2023)